MASTER YOUR THINKING
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ALIGN YOURSELF WITH
REALITY AND ACHIEVE TANGIBLE RESULTS IN THE
REAL WORLD
THIBAUT MEURISSE
CONTENTS
Why this book
Who is this book for
Introduction
Your Free Step-By-Step Action Guide
Your Mastery Series
I. Letting go of inaccurate thinking
1. The cost of inaccurate thinking
2. Why your current thinking is inaccurate
II. Aligning yourself with reality
1. Accepting reality as it is
2. Uncovering your assumptions
3. Refining your model of reality
4. Avoiding common misconceptions and delusional thinking
5. How to create an effective process
III. Empowering your model of reality
1. Design an empowering environment
2. Developing unshakeable confidence
3. Expand your field of possibilities
Conclusion
Your Mastery Series
Master Your Emotions (PREVIEW)
Other Books By The Authors:
About the Author
WHY THIS BOOK
Over the years, I’ve encountered a lot of people who have a
flawed model of reality. They would tell me their goals and
how excited they were to achieve them; however, when
looking at their approach, I could clearly see they lacked a
proper understanding of what was required to achieve those
goals. This would manifest in different ways, such as:
A level of action out of alignment with their ambitious
goals (i.e. insufficient action),
A poor strategy,
A blind conviction they were on the right track, even
when they were not, and/or
An unwillingness to listen to feedback and reconsider
their approach.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing ambitious visions. I
have a crazy vision myself and I believe in the importance of
having inspiring life visions. The problem arises when
people spend months or even years acting in a way that
rarely allows them to move closer to their vision—often
unknowingly.
That’s why I wrote this book. This book will help you think
more accurately, and it will help you design and enact an
effective strategy to increase your odds of achieving your
goals. Life is too short for you to waste time doing things
that fail to bring the results you want.
WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR
You’ll greatly benefit from this book if you recognize
yourself in one or more of the following situations:
You’ve been pursuing a specific goal for months or
years but have failed to make significant progress.
You want to assess your chances of success for any
future endeavors.
You want to develop highly effective strategies to help
you achieve your goals.
You want to achieve any future goals or dreams faster
than you normally would.
If any of the above points resonate with you, read on.
INTRODUCTION
Do you have big dreams but don’t seem to make progress
toward them? Do you wonder whether you should even try to
chase these dreams? Perhaps you think you are deluding
yourself?
We live in a world where doing certain things will get you
positive results, while doing others will not. This is the law
of cause and effect. Therefore, one of the most important
skills you can develop is the ability to create an accurate
model of reality. In other words, you need to develop the
ability to understand how reality works to help you act in a
way that is more likely to produce the results you want.
Unfortunately, this isn’t as simple as it may appear. This is
especially true in today’s world where the influx of
information we receive can be overwhelming. But developing
an accurate model of reality is vital. People who are serious
about achieving their goals continuously seek to develop a
better model of reality. These individuals are obsessed with
finding out what works while, at the same time, letting go of
what doesn’t.
On the other hand, mediocre or unsuccessful people tend to
rely on flawed models of reality. Because they fail to grasp
how reality works, they are unable to create an effective
blueprint to achieve their goals. This leads them to try all
sorts of things and, when none of the gimmicks or tactics
they use work, they end up feeling discouraged.
Throughout this book, we will discover that the better you
understand reality, the better armed you will be to take the
actions needed to achieve the results you want. As you learn
to build more effective models of reality, you will be able to
skyrocket results in all areas of your life.
In Part I. Letting go of inaccurate thinking, you’ll discover the
common errors in thinking people make, and learn how to
think more accurately. Furthermore, as you develop more
accurate thinking, you’ll be able to take effective action
which, in turn, will help you achieve tangible results.
In Part II. Aligning yourself with reality, we’ll discuss the
importance of being in alignment with reality and see how
you can move toward this position. Among other things,
you’ll learn how to make better assumptions, gather
information more effectively and ask smarter questions. As
you further align yourself with reality, you’ll be able to
create better strategies and implement effective processes
that will bring you the results you want.
Finally, in Part III. Empowering your model of reality, we’ll see
how to make your model of reality work for you. You’ll learn
how to design an empowering environment, develop rocksolid confidence and expand your field of possibilities. And
by doing this, you will increase your odds of achieving any
goal you set your mind to.
So, are you ready to align with reality and achieve tangible
results in the real world? If so, read on.
YOUR FREE STEP-BY-STEP ACTION GUIDE
To help you develop accurate thinking, I’ve created a free
action guide. Make sure you download it at the following
URL:
https://whatispersonaldevelopment.org/myt-workbook
If you have any difficulty downloading the action guide,
contact me at: thibaut.meurisse@gmail.com and I will send
you a copy as soon as possible.
Alternatively, you can use the action guide available at the
end of this book.
Master Your Life With The Mastery Series
This book is the fifth book in the “Mastery Series”. You can
check out the other books in the series by clicking the link
below
mybook.to/Master_Emotions
PART I
LETTING GO OF INACCURATE
THINKING
Are you thinking straight?
Chances are, you’re not.
The truth is, it’s almost impossible to develop a completely
accurate picture of the world or any part of it. There are just
too many variables and too much conflicting information out
there. Not to mention the variety of biases we’re subject to or
the countless tricks our mind plays on us.
The point is, thinking well is challenging. However, it is our
responsibility to sharpen our thinking so we can develop an
accurate model of reality. This, in turn, will help us take
effective action and make a difference in the world around
us.
Please note, in this book, we will define “model of reality” as
the sum of all the beliefs we hold. This includes our political
beliefs, our religious beliefs, as well as the beliefs we have
about ourselves, our lives, or our work, to name just a few
factors. The more accurate our beliefs can be, the better
decisions we can make—and the better the results we will
achieve. This is why accurate thinking is absolutely critical to
our success.
In this section, we’ll spend some time investigating all the
ways your current thinking might be inaccurate. We’ll look
at the common mistakes you make in terms of your thought
processes, your “thinking”, we’ll explore how your beliefs
are created and we’ll see how your emotions can trick you.
As you learn to let go of inaccurate thinking, you’ll develop a
better model of reality, leading you to achieve better results.
In this book, we’ll define inaccurate thinking as thinking in a
biased way, which includes:
Holding onto wrong assumptions that don’t reflect
reality,
Falling for cognitive biases that cloud your judgment,
Being a victim of common disempowering thought
patterns, or
Letting your emotional state influence your decisions.
But before we go into each of the above points in more detail,
let’s review some of the consequences of thinking
inaccurately.
THE COST OF INACCURATE THINKING
Because your thought processes determine the actions you
take, thinking inaccurately can have negative consequences.
It can lead you to make poor decisions that may prevent you
from achieving optimal results. For instance, among other
things, inaccurate thinking can:
Create unnecessary suffering in your life,
Lead you to waste a lot of time and energy,
Make you feel bad, and
Lead you to feel overwhelmed.
A. Inaccurate thinking creates unnecessary suffering in your life
Inaccurate thinking can be the source of countless dramas
and can create more suffering than needed in your life.
In this situation, you fall prey to various biases or make snap
judgments. For example, the poor assumptions you’re
making might lead you to misinterpret what someone said or
did. In fact, many issues, such as miscommunication, are the
result of poor thinking skills and misinterpretation.
Let me give you one example. One of my friends wanted to
create a Meetup event to help people connect more
intimately through various games. He contacted a woman
who organizes international parties on Meetup for advice.
When she failed to reply to his message, my friend wondered
whether she perceived him as a competitor.
I advised him to be extra careful when making such
contentious assumptions and suggested there could be many
reasons why she didn’t reply to his message. She might have
had personal or professional issues. She may have missed his
message. Or she may simply have forgotten. As it turned out,
she had been sick. Eventually, she did reply, which showed
she had no misgivings regarding his approach.
The lesson here is that, in the absence of specific data or
clear information to verify your assumptions, you should
avoid making them at all. However, if you are to assume
anything, try to come up with the most positive assumption
you can think of. Also, whenever possible, take the necessary
steps to verify any and all assumptions. For instance:
Rather than assuming someone doesn’t like your idea
because they seem distracted during your
presentation, ask them directly. Don’t resent them or
create a whole story in your mind without verifying
your supposition.
Rather than assuming a person doesn’t like you,
check until you’re sure that’s the case beyond any
reasonable doubt.
The bottom line is, avoid making negative assumptions.
Instead, take action and search for the truth. By doing so,
you’ll get rid of many potentially negative issues in your life.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down two or three examples
of inaccurate assumptions you may be making right now or
have made in the past.
B. Inaccurate thinking leads you to waste time
Have you ever spent a lot of time doing something that
didn’t need to be done in the first place?
People who fail to take enough time to think things through
can easily fall into this trap. Inaccurate or insufficient
thinking may lead you to:
1. Work on low-value tasks, or
2. Approach tasks in the wrong way.
1. Working on low-value tasks
Time is one of your most precious assets. Every second you
waste is lost forever. If you don’t think before you act, you
risk wasting time working on the wrong things. Are you
certain the task you’re about to begin is really that
important, or would you be better off tackling a more
important one?
In truth, only a few of the actions you take will generate
most of your results. The rest will barely move the needle
forward. Consequently, your job is to identify the key
activities to focus your time and energy on. This concept is
often referred to as the “80/20 Principle”. According to this
principle, twenty percent of your actions will generate eighty
percent of your results. Therefore, you should identify your
twenty percent and focus on it while delegating or removing
the remaining ineffective eighty percent. Of course, this is
not an exact science. It is possible that ten percent of your
actions will lead to ninety percent of your successful results.
Or perhaps just one percent of your tasks will generate fifty
percent or more of your overall output.
The point is, thinking accurately involves identifying your
key tasks and focusing most of your efforts on those.
Bonus tip: Your key tasks tend to be the ones you want to do
the least and/or those tasks that consume the most of your
energy.
In Part II. Aligning yourself with reality, we’ll see how you can
create an effective strategy to ensure you work on the right
tasks and approach them in the correct way.
2. Approaching tasks the wrong way
Now, working on your key tasks is not enough. You must also
ensure you approach them the right way. To do so, before
beginning any new task, ask yourself what you can do to
complete it as quickly and as effectively as possible. For
instance:
Could you re-use or modify an existing template?
Could you ask an experienced friend for advice?
Could you break down the task even further?
Taking a few minutes to think before diving headfirst into a
challenge can often save you a lot of time and headaches.
Personally, before starting a task or project, I like to ask
myself one simple, yet fundamental question: Who can help
me? In other words, who knows the answers to my questions
or understands the blueprint to follow to help me achieve my
goal?
The truth is, most of the things you’re trying to achieve have
already been achieved by other people before you. Therefore,
why reinvent the wheel? Why go through the hassle of
figuring out things by yourself when you could ask others?
Now let me give you a couple of examples from my personal
life.
Example 1: Last year, a Russian publisher offered to buy the
foreign rights of one of my books. Because I had never sold
my foreign rights before, I wasn’t sure how to proceed. So, I
contacted an author who I knew sold the foreign rights of his
books. I asked him if he would be willing to look into the
contract I received from the publisher, which he kindly
agreed to do. Not only did he give me the help I needed, we
became friends, too. I call that a win-win!
Example 2: One of my goals this year is to have three of my
books translated into Spanish, French and German. Knowing
it would take me hours to find the right translators, I kept
procrastinating on that goal.
Then I remembered that one of my author friends had
already translated his book into foreign languages. So I asked
him how he found his translators. He kindly introduced me
to his Spanish, French and German translators and
proofreaders which saved me a great deal of time and
energy.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not saying you should
“use” other people for your own benefit. I always try to help
people as much as I can, and I believe you should, too. But
why not ask others to share with you what they already know
while you reciprocate for them? You’ll save each other a lot
of time and frustration.
Below are additional questions to help you approach a task
with maximum effectiveness:
Who do I know who has already achieved my goal?
Do I know anyone able to put me in contact with
someone who has achieved my goal?
Who could tell me the best blueprint to reach my
goal?
Who could give me the most valuable advice (based
on personal experience, not just theory)?
Who could tell me where to look for the right
information?
Action step
Look at everything you did this week. Were these tasks all
absolutely essential? Were any unnecessary? Write down
your answer in your action guide.
C. Inaccurate thinking leads you to feel bad about yourself
You now understand that thinking inaccurately can lead you
to take ineffective actions which can prevent you from
achieving your goals. Another side-effect is that, as you keep
failing to reach your targets, you begin to lose confidence in
yourself. You may start believing that something is wrong
with you, that perhaps you’re just “not good enough”.
However, the real issue is usually your lack of understanding
of the way reality works. Put differently, you may have built
poor models of reality by failing to:
Gather adequate information,
Gain sufficient experience, or
Cultivate accurate thinking.
For instance, you may believe that just by buying a course
and completing all the exercises, you’ll be able to find
enough clients to become a full-time coach within three
months and finally quit your soul-crushing job. However,
this thinking is likely to be unrealistic. You may have failed
to take some components into consideration. As you embark
upon your task, you may discover that it takes more time and
effort than you originally imagined. In which case, you may
feel discouraged and give up.
By learning to think more accurately and realistically, you’ll
start feeling better about yourself. You’ll realize you’re doing
okay, and you will set more realistic goals. Doing so will
enable you to accumulate small wins and boost your
confidence over time.
For example, instead of hoping to be coaching full-time
within three months, you could give yourself two years to
grow your coaching business, celebrating each milestone
along the way (e.g., your first client, your first $1,000
month, et cetera).
Bonus tip: To avoid feeling bad or discouraged, see beyond
the success stories used by marketers. Yes, some people do
become wildly successful within a few months—but these
people are in a tiny minority. They are unicorns whose
success could be explained by a variety of factors such as
previous experience, rare personality traits or luck. Most
people will need to put in a lot of time and effort before they
can achieve concrete results. Some of the most successful
people on earth spent years working on their craft before
they could become “overnight successes”. So, be patient.
Keep going.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down three situations when
you had unrealistic expectations and felt disappointed or
frustrated when you failed to achieve your goals or reach
your targets. Then write down your answer to the following
questions:
What is one current goal for which you may have
unrealistic expectations?
How could you adjust your expectations to make them
more realistic?
D. Inaccurate thinking leads you to feel overwhelmed
By failing to take the time to think, it is easy to become
swamped by the sea of information available. Thinking
accurately means being able to sort through the information,
separating the relevant from the irrelevant. Relevant
information includes everything you need to know now to
achieve your goals. Irrelevant information encompasses
everything else. Of course, it doesn’t mean you should
consume only information you’ll use right away, but it does
mean you should avoid consuming more information than
you need.
Most of the information we consume today is noise which is
not only unnecessary, but also counterproductive. Keeping
up to date with new tactics, tricks and other gimmicks will
only lead you to jump from one thing to the next, never
getting any closer to your goals. Realize that most of the
principles you need to apply to reach your goals remain
constant. They do not change every day. They will often work
for years and years. Consequently, trying different tactics on
a whim is unlikely to lead to sudden success. What you need
is a sound strategy.
In other words, the less you get caught up in the incessant
flow of data, the better you’ll be able to separate noise from
valuable information. This will make it easier for you to look
at the bigger picture and craft an effective strategy that will
work for you.
In the third book in this series, Master Your Focus, I explain in
detail how to select the necessary information, while
eliminating everything else, to help you develop laser-sharp
focus and achieve tangible results. You can learn more here.
Action step
Fill in the table in your action guide. To do so:
In the first column, write down all the information
you consumed in the past seven days (e.g., books,
articles or emails you read, websites, videos, et
cetera).
In the second column, write down “U” for useful
information or “N” for noise.
In the third column, write down the concrete actions
you will take do deal with information you’ve
identified as noise.
To conclude, inaccurate thinking comes at a high price.
When you fail to think clearly, you’ll make many poor
decisions which will cost you time and money. So make sure
you avoid:
Making negative assumptions without checking
whether they are accurate,
Starting a task without thinking things through
beforehand,
Substituting thinking for hard work,
Having unrealistic expectations, and
Consuming too much irrelevant information.
Now, let’s look in more detail at some of the reasons your
current thinking may be inaccurate.
WHY YOUR CURRENT THINKING IS INACCURATE
It’s impossible to have a completely accurate vision of the
world. We all fall prey to biases and tend to rely on snap
judgments to make decisions. Fortunately, there are tools we
can use to develop our ability to think more accurately and
make better decisions.
Let’s review a few reasons why your thinking may be
inaccurate and see what you can do about it.
A. Poor assumptions distort your thinking
Your thinking might be inaccurate because you made, or are
making, bad assumptions that poorly reflect the reality
around you.
The truth is, you make assumptions all day long. Many of
these assumptions have little impact on your life, but some
can have severe repercussions. As we’ve seen before, what
you believe dictates how you think, feel and act. Therefore,
having incorrect assumptions (i.e., thinking inaccurately)
will lead you to take wrong actions and achieve poor results.
For this reason, you must learn to challenge your
assumptions. Whenever I coach a client or interact with
someone, I try to identify each negative assumption they
may have. Some of which could be:
You can’t have it all, right?
I can’t make money doing this.
I’m not smart enough.
I need to work harder.
But are these statements accurate? They may or may not be.
What about you? What major assumptions are you making in
your life? Each inaccurate assumption you hold onto creates
limitations. The moment you believe something is
impossible, it will almost never become your reality. For this
reason, you must be extra careful when you make
assumptions: they have real consequences in the real world.
For instance, let’s assume you believe that the sole purpose
of your job is to pay the bills. If so, what are the odds you end
up designing your dream career?
I remember a conversation I had with my supervisor when
working in Japan years ago. He told me that I didn’t need to
like my job, that I should just collect my paycheck and enjoy
my free time. Perhaps he was right. Maybe a job only serves
to pay the bills. But it didn’t seem quite right to me at the
time. I couldn’t resign myself to spending the rest of my life
jumping from one unfulfilling job to the next just to make
ends meet.
If I had bought into my boss’ idea, I would probably never
have built a career I’m passionate about. This demonstrates
how dangerous assumptions can be. Holding just one
erroneous assumption can limit your possibilities and
destroy your potential for growth and fulfillment.
Let’s have a look at one more example.
Imagine one of your assumptions is that money is evil. If so,
what are the chances you end up wealthy? Very slim. Why
would you want to be associated with anything evil?
I hope by now you understand how limiting erroneous
assumptions can be. What you believe will often become your
reality. So be careful what you wish for.
Now does this mean that assumptions are useless? No. They
exist for a reason. Let’s see why we make assumptions.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down three disempowering
assumptions you may be making in your life right now.
1. Why we make assumptions
Our brains need to give meaning to things and events as an
attempt to understand them. This is why we can’t help but
interpret everything that happens to us. For instance, some
of our ancestors saw natural disasters as a manifestation of
Gods’ wrath and chose to perform rituals to appease these
deities.
Similarly, your assumptions provide you with a framework
you can use to navigate through life and make decisions. You
may hold assumptions about the nature of work, the
meaning of life or the way politics works. The more accurate
these are, the better decisions you’ll make—and the better
results you will be able to achieve.
Please note, making assumptions is inevitable. Your mind
automatically processes the information around you and
interprets it, thereby creating a model of reality that is
unique to you. Without assumptions, you have no criteria
you can use to assess whether an action is relevant which
would prevent you from making any sound decision.
In my book, Crush Your Limits, I reveal fifty assumptions that
may be preventing you from living the life you want. You can
learn more here.
2. Where your assumptions come from
As detailed above, our minds generate assumptions. But have
you ever wondered where these assumptions come from?
Why do you hold onto some assumptions while your
neighbor holds onto others? Your assumptions are part of
the model of reality you’ve built throughout your life. To
understand where they come from, we need to look in more
detail at how you created your model of reality.
3. How your model of reality is created.
Your model of reality encompasses all the assumptions (or
beliefs) you rely on to give meaning to the world around you.
Each of us has our own subjective model of reality, which
may be more or less accurate. The beliefs that constitute
your model of reality come from different sources such as:
Your parents,
Your teachers,
The media (newspaper, TV, internet et cetera),
Your friends and peers,
Your own experiences, and
Your interpretation.
Let’s go through each one.
a. Your parents
Your parents play an important part in shaping your model
of reality. They do so by passing their beliefs onto you. Note
that sometimes, instead of adopting your parents’ beliefs,
you take the opposite beliefs, whether consciously or
unconsciously. For instance:
Witnessing your parents’ penny-pinching may lead
you to spend your money frivolously or even fall into
debt.
Having strict parents may lead you to become more
lenient with your own children.
In short, you tend to mimic your parents or do the exact
opposite. Now, it’s up to you to look closer at the beliefs you
inherited and change them as and when necessary.
b. Your teachers
School also influences your model of reality through the
interaction you have with your teachers and classmates. No
matter how neutral your teachers intend to be, they have
their own vision of the world. The beliefs transmitted to you
during your school years will depend on a variety of factors,
such as the type of school you attended, your teachers and
classmates or the country you lived in, among other factors.
In short, school isn’t neutral. It influences your beliefs and
shapes your ongoing model of reality.
c. The media
Media also has a huge influence. TV channels, newspapers
and other media outlets have their own agenda and biases.
For instance, they tend to report negative events such as
riots, crimes or natural disasters while ignoring positive
news. Why? Because bad news sells. This can lead you to
believe the world is a worse place than it actually is.
Try completing the following sentence:
In the last twenty years, the proportion of the world
population living in extreme poverty has …
A: Almost doubled.
B: Remained more or less the same.
C: Almost halved.
The correct answer is C: almost halved.
Did you get it right? Only four percent of French, five percent
of American and nine percent of British people did. This
information was taken from Hans Rosling’s book,
Factfulness. In his book, Rosling demonstrates that, contrary
to what many of us believe, in many aspects things are
improving the world over.
The point is, what’s reported on the news isn’t truly
representative of the actual state of the world. Now, why
does this matter? Because misinterpreting reality comes
with real-world consequences. For instance, believing the
world is worse than it is may lead you to lose hope. As a
result, you may not bother taking any action to improve it.
Your inaccurate perception of the world may also lead you to
waste a lot of time and effort addressing the wrong problems
while ignoring more urgent issues. This is the cost of having
an inaccurate model of reality. It’s not just theory.
d. Your friends and peers
Your friends, colleagues and peers will inevitably influence
your perception of the world. If you’re not careful,
pessimistic people will kill your dreams. On the other hand,
positive people will inspire you, increasing the odds you’ll
accomplish great things, sometimes far beyond anything you
can imagine.
To learn how to surround yourself with positive people and
design a more empowering environment, refer to the
section, Designing an empowering environment in Part III of
this book.
e. Your own experiences
Everything you experience, whether positive or negative, is
feedback from reality. In other words, as you take action in
the real world, you receive valuable information from the
reality around you. The feedback you receive may confirm
what you previously thought, or it may refute it, forcing you
to revise your original model.
For instance, you may believe you did an excellent job with
your homework only to receive a bad grade from your
teacher. This feedback from reality will force you to revise
your stance and take the necessary action to improve your
performance (e.g., take extra classes, ask your friends for
help, et cetera).
The more action you take, the more feedback you receive,
and the more opportunities you have to make better
assumptions and refine your model of reality.
f. Your interpretation
Experience is a great teacher. However, what shapes your
model of reality isn’t only what you experience, but also the
way you interpret it. And the way you interpret your
experiences is based on the assumptions you hold. By
learning to make better assumptions, you’ll give more
constructive meaning to your experiences. This, in turn, will
lead you to take smarter actions and produce better results.
For example, if you assume every setback you face moves
you closer to your goals, you’ll be more inclined to learn
from your mistakes rather than be disheartened by them.
However, if you see setbacks as a sign that you’re not
capable enough, you’ll likely avoid making mistakes which
will hamper your growth. Similarly, if you assume people
have good intentions, you’ll interpret situations more
positively than if you believe these same people want to take
advantage of you.
Now that we’ve seen how your assumptions are made and
how they contribute to creating your model of reality, let’s
have a look at common biases that further distort your
thinking.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down one limiting assumption
you may have adopted from each of the sources below:
Your parents and family.
Your teachers.
Your friends and peers.
The media.
Your experiences.
Your interpretation.
B. Five common biases that distort your thinking
As human beings, we’re prone to fall prey to a variety of
biases. This is just how our brain works. To become a better
thinker, you must become acutely aware of the major biases
you may be the victim of.
Now it’s not possible to be completely unbiased. To do so,
you would have to be aware of your thoughts 24/7 which
would demand far more energy than you have. However,
during key moments that require you to make sound
decisions, you can make yourself more aware of your biggest
biases.
In this section, we’ll review some of the major biases that
may lead you to think inaccurately. We’ll see how you can
overcome these biases and sharpen your thinking to place
you in a better position to achieve your goals. The biases we
will cover are:
1. The self-serving bias,
2. The sunk cost fallacy,
3. The planning fallacy,
4. The survivorship bias, and
5. The Dunning-Kruger Effect.
1. Self-serving bias
This is when you attribute your successes to your skills, but
attribute your failures to bad luck. This bias leads you to
obsess over the outcome while paying scant attention to the
process. When the outcome is favorable, you assume the
process is right (although it may not be). When the outcome
is unfavorable, you call yourself unlucky, even though you
may have followed the correct process.
We have to admit that luck plays a role in many situations,
especially in the short term. Therefore, merely looking at the
immediate outcome can be misleading. Instead, you must
pay close attention to the process and keep refining it by
analyzing case studies, experimenting and learning from
feedback. You must strive to identify the correct actions. By
taking the right actions repeatedly, you'll increase the
chances of striking it “lucky” at some point.
How to deal with self-serving bias
To avoid being a victim of this bias:
Put emphasis on the process. Focus on what you need
to do every day to maximize your chances of
achieving your long-term goals.
Avoid assuming your process is effective just because
you obtained good short-term results. Instead, keep
working on refining it over time.
Never assume you know it all. Stay open-minded and
listen to the feedback you receive from the people
around you.
2. The sunk cost fallacy
To think accurately, you must assess the actions you’re
taking today based on their sole ability to get you where you
want to be. Too often, people fall for what is called the “sunk
cost fallacy”. That is, they make decisions based on their
past actions rather than on the present. They let the time,
money and energy they’ve spent in the past influence their
decisions. However, from a logical point of view, everything
they did in the past is largely irrelevant. Here are some
examples of how the sunk cost fallacy works.
Having spent months or years working on your
business, you decide to keep going even though you
should probably give up and move on to another
venture.
Having spent hundreds of dollars on your book cover,
you refuse to change it even though it’s hindering
your sales.
Having been in a relationship for years, you refuse to
move out of it even though it might be best for you
both in the long term.
In all the examples above, you choose to maintain the status
quo because of a variety of factors from the past while
ignoring what your present self really wants. By doing so,
you neglect your present self and act against the interests of
the future self you want to become.
To guard yourself against the sunk cost fallacy, you can
practice what is called “zero-based thinking”. To do so, ask
yourself the following question:
Knowing what I now know, would I still … today?
For example:
Knowing what I now know, would I still start that
business today?
Knowing what I now know, would I still take that job
today?
Knowing what I now know, would I still buy that book
cover today?
Knowing what I now know, would I still start that
relationship today?
If your answer is no, it indicates your present self wants
something else.
Another way to overcome sunk cost fallacy is to learn to
value your future self more highly. There is no need to please
your past self anymore, but your future self is counting on
you to make the best decisions today to maximize your
happiness tomorrow. Ask yourself this question:
If you were your future self five years from now, what would
you want your present self to do for you today?
3. Planning fallacy
We’re terrible at planning. When we think of something we’d
like to achieve, we fail to consider all the things that could go
wrong. This is why many projects are delayed and/or end up
costing far more than originally planned.
Thinking accurately entails making better forecasts to help
you create more realistic plans. When you hold onto
unrealistic expectations, you might feel demotivated when
things don’t turn out as planned. You may even believe that
you aren’t smart enough and that something is wrong with
you. By failing to deliver on what you promised, you may
also get into trouble with your customers.
How to overcome planning fallacy
One of the best ways to avoid falling prey to the planning
fallacy is to get into the habit of giving yourself more time to
complete your tasks or projects. A good idea is to double the
time you think you’ll need to finish a given project.
For long-term projects, ask yourself what could go wrong.
Look at similar projects you’ve completed in the past and see
what problems you encountered and how much time and
effort it took to solve them. Alternatively, look for similar
projects completed by other people or companies and use
them as benchmarks. Then once you come up with your
schedule and budget, add an extra buffer.
4. Survivorship bias
Survivorship bias is when we only look at the success stories
but fail to take into account all the failures that don’t make
the headlines. This bias can give us the impression that our
chances of success are much higher than they really are. To
give you an example, for every start-up that succeeds,
hundreds fail.
In other words, trying to discover the key to success by
observing successful entrepreneurs might not always be
useful. A big part of their success could be the result of luck.
After all, if we take a large enough pool of hard-working
entrepreneurs, some of them are bound to end up being
successful, right?
The point here is not to tell you that everything is due to luck,
but to help you understand the concept of probabilities so
that you are better able to align your thinking with reality.
The good news is that luck tends to become less relevant
over the long term. This means, if you manage to think fairly
well, construct an effective model of reality, and act on it
consistently, you’re more likely to end up getting “lucky” at
some stage.
In Part III. Empowering your model of reality, we’ll discuss
what you can do to “engineer” more luck and further boost
your odds of success.
How to deal with survivorship bias
For whatever goal you want to reach, read everything you
can about the people who succeed. Try to understand what
they did to succeed and what their thought process was
during their climb. But don’t stop there. Look at the people
who failed to achieve that same goal and try to find out why
they failed. Then answer the following questions:
What are all the reasons I could fail?
What could prevent me from reaching that goal?
Challenges you face could be external obstacles, such as a
lack of resources or they could be internal obstacles, such as
limiting beliefs or a lack of resourcefulness.
To conclude, learn both from success stories and from
failures. This is how you can refine your model of reality and
increase the odds of achieving your goals.
5. Dunning-Kruger Effect
Have you noticed that people who know the least sometimes
seem to be the most confident? That’s the taxi driver who
tells you which stocks to pick, the hairdresser who claims to
have the solution to complex political issues or the bartender
who teaches you how to run your business. This bias has
been named the Dunning-Kruger Effect (from the
psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger who
demonstrated this bias through experiments).
As you work toward your goal, one major problem you face is
that you don’t know what you don’t know. This leads you to
believe you know more than you actually do which can create
serious issues. As a result, you might become complacent
instead of learning more about your goal and refining your
assumptions.
How to deal with the Dunning-Kruger Effect
To minimize the consequences of this bias, be willing to
question your approach. Continuously learn from feedback
and remain humble no matter how experienced you may
think you are. Your ability to question everything and your
willingness to learn will enable you to refine your model of
reality over time. The moment you think you know it all is
when your downfall begins—whether you realize this or not.
We’ll discuss the importance of being humble and learning
from feedback in greater depth in the section, How your ego
affects your thinking, and in Part II. Aligning yourself with
reality.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down how each bias plays out
in your life. Aim to give at least one specific example for each
bias below:
Self-serving bias.
Sunk cost fallacy.
Planning fallacy.
Survivorship bias.
Dunning-Kruger Effect.
C. How your ego affects your thinking
Your ego also plays an important part when it comes to
developing accurate thinking. Your ego may lead you to
refuse to ask for help, live in denial, avoid failures, or blame
other people or circumstances. Such an attitude will severely
hamper your ability to perform at your best and achieve your
goals.
In this book, we’ll define ego as the identity you believe you
must protect to maintain your current sense of self. You
might think of it as pride.
To improve your thinking, you must let go of your ego. You
must be willing to admit when you’re wrong. The more you
can do so, the more you’ll be able to learn and refine your
model of reality. Conversely, the more you try to hold onto
the idea that you are right, the less you’ll learn and the more
you risk being out of alignment with reality. Denying reality
often leads to mediocrity. By trying to be right, you’ll make it
much harder to improve.
Now, there are several ways your ego can prevent you from
achieving the results you want. An ego out of control might
result in you:
1. Living in denial,
2. Refusing to ask for help,
3. Avoiding failures, or
4. Blaming other people or external circumstances.
1. Living in denial
To construct a better model, you must see reality as it is,
even when it hurts. You must accept that for things to
change, you will have to change. And from your ego’s
perspective, that’s scary.
Unfortunately, being so attached to the way you’ve always
done things might make you unwilling to change your
approach. However, failing to look at your issues objectively
will prevent you from making the necessary changes in your
life.
To give you an example, for months I refused to calculate
how much I was making in book royalties. I was too afraid to
look at the truth. After quitting my job to write full time, I
decided to confront reality. I needed to treat writing as a
business, and I started by looking at the numbers. After
factoring in editing, proofreading, advertising and all my
other costs, I discovered I was actually losing money. Facing
that truth enabled me to start making better business
decisions and to improve my results over time.
What about you? In what ways are you living in denial?
Which areas are you closing your eyes to?
The first step to change anything is to assess the current
situation with as much objectivity as possible. Are you
willing to do so?
2. Refusing to ask for help
Do you ask for help or do you always try to figure out things
on your own?
Many of us are afraid to admit when we need help. We don’t
want to look bad. We dread letting others know how ignorant
or inept we are. However, failing to do so can generate a lot
of suffering in our lives. Not to mention that this type of
behavior can hinder our progress.
When you fail to ask for help, you risk making decisions that
will cost you time and energy. For instance, you may spend
hours trying to figure out how to create a blog when you
could have asked one of your tech-savvy friends. If you know
someone who could give you the information you need or
teach you invaluable skills, why not let go of your ego and
ask for help?
The point is, it’s not only okay to ask for help, it’s also often
essential. If you don’t know something, ask. Most successful
people willingly ask for help, so why wouldn’t you? By
asking more questions, you learn better and faster which
enables you to refine your model of reality over time.
Now there are a few reasons you may be afraid of asking
which could include:
Pride,
The fear of bothering people, or
The belief you should figure things out for yourself.
Let’s briefly go over each of them.
a. Pride
Are you afraid of letting others know how much you are
struggling? Do you fear losing face? If that’s the case, realize
that allowing yourself to be vulnerable will often let you
create deeper and more intimate connections with the people
around you. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness; it shows
that you are willing to grow and open yourself to others. This
is what strong people do.
b. Fear of bothering people.
If you’re like me, you may not want to bother people with
your problems. Perhaps you feel bad because they’re busy, or
perhaps you think you’re not important enough to take up
other people’s time. If so, this may be a sign that you don’t
value yourself highly enough. Start noticing these situations
and challenge yourself to “bother" others just a little bit
more than you currently feel comfortable with.
Also, don’t forget that most people are happy to help. We
generally love showcasing our expertise. We want to feel
useful. So why not “bother” people from time to time? It
might feel slightly uncomfortable, but it’s a healthy practice
that can help you value yourself more.
c. The belief you should figure things out for yourself
Perhaps you believe you should figure things out all by
yourself. This can be a good thing as it stimulates your
creativity and develops your resourcefulness—a key element
to achieving a higher level of success. However, there are
also times when you are far better off asking for support. You
can’t afford the luxury of reinventing the wheel every time
you attempt something new. If the people around you have
skills and knowledge you can benefit from, why not ask for
their guidance?
Before I attended business school back in 2013, I didn’t know
anything about business and could barely use a spreadsheet.
Too ashamed to reveal my poor skills, I would let others
create spreadsheets during group work, or I would find ways
to get them to share their files with me. This behavior not
only prevented me from honing my skills, but also made me
feel inadequate. This is a pattern I’ve seen play out many
times in my life. It works as follow:
I assume I should know how to do something (even
though I have no experience doing it),
I feel ashamed of myself for not knowing how to do it,
I try hard to hide my “inadequacy” while feeling
terrible about myself,
Not asking for help, I struggle to improve,
The skill gap between me and others further widens,
and
I end up feeling even worse about myself.
I believe this is a pattern that many people with low selfesteem go through. So, if the above process sounds familiar,
notice it. And remember, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Most successful people reach out for help. They recognize it
as the best way to attain better results faster. They also
understand that mutual help is a wonderful way to create
deeper and more meaningful relationships with their
spouses, kids, friends or colleagues. It makes them feel part
of a community.
In short, by not asking for help, you risk feeling isolated and
powerless. Almost inevitably, some people out there have the
answer to your question. Why not find them and ask for their
support? This might be the smartest and most mature thing
you can do.
3. Avoiding failure
Are you afraid of failure? Are you scared of looking bad?
Failing means you’re trying something new, and your ego
usually doesn’t like that. It prefers maintaining the status
quo. However, to achieve any meaningful goal, you’ll have to
grow. If you were already the person you needed to be to
reach your goals, you would already have achieved them,
wouldn’t you?
But you haven’t.
Change is the only constant in this world. Everything either
grows or decays. If you don’t maintain your house, it will
eventually fall apart. If you don’t grow your business, you’ll
lose market share to your competitors and if you don’t make
an effort to improve, you’ll tend to become worse. Therefore,
to grow and move toward your ideal life, you need to
challenge yourself by experimenting with new things. This
entails a willingness to fail.
There is no such thing as failure
Many people try to avoid failing at all costs, but this is not
how to design your ideal life. The most successful people on
this planet understand the value of failure. They are willing
to “fail” as many times as necessary until they achieve their
goals.
In truth, failure is something to use, not to avoid. Failure is
the feedback mechanism you need to refine your model of
reality. You need failures so that you can adjust your
trajectory and hit your goals. The same way that pain tells
you something is wrong with your body, “failures” tell you
something might be off with your approach. As you learn to
see failures as feedback from reality, you’ll find it easier to
persevere until you reach your final destination.
Note that failure isn’t personal. You don’t “fail”, you tried
something that didn’t work. If it didn’t work, try something
else. Ask for feedback. Consult experts. Find a mentor. Tweak
your plan. Or try just one more time.
The bottom line is, stop being afraid of failure. Use every
single one of your so-called failures to refine your model of
reality. And keep adjusting your trajectory until you travel
from where you are now to where you want to be in the
future.
4. Blaming other people and circumstances
Another tendency you might have is to play the victim. The
problem is, when you act like a victim, you rob yourself of an
opportunity to take more responsibility for your life and
make positive changes. Being a victim means you abandon
your power and give it away to other people or
circumstances.
A good way to explain victimhood is to imagine a spectrum
with “personal responsibility” on the far left side and
“blame” on the far right side. The more you take personal
responsibility, the less you blame other people or external
circumstances and vice-versa. These concepts are mutually
exclusive.
So why do you like to play the victim? Being a victim
probably:
Enables you to maintain the illusion you’re right
(your ego hates being wrong), and
Allows you to do nothing about your situation.
Accepting the idea that you may be partly responsible
would force you to do something which may require a
lot of time and energy.
Now I’m not saying other people or circumstances are never
obstacles standing between you and your goals. What I am
saying is that the more you seek responsibility for
everything that happens to you, the more you empower
yourself and the better chance you have to improve your
situation.
For instance, blaming your lack of success on a difficult
childhood will not help you design your ideal future. On the
other hand, by being willing to ask yourself what you can do
about your current situation, you’ll come up with a variety of
actions you can start taking today.
Part of thinking accurately entails acknowledging the idea
that you have the power to change your life. And this starts
by focusing on what you can do rather than looking for who
or what is to blame. This is how you can achieve tangible
results in the real world.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down one specific example
from your personal life for each ego activity below:
Living in denial.
Refusing to ask for help.
Avoiding failures, and
Blaming other people or external circumstances.
Then write down what you could do to deal with each of
these four ego traps.
D. How your emotions distort your thinking
Inaccurate thinking can also be the result of a
disempowering emotional state. Our emotions can distort
both our thinking and the way we behave. For instance,
when you feel good about yourself, you are more creative and
have more energy to take the actions needed to achieve your
goals. Conversely, when you’re feeling like a failure, you
have no motivation and invite in more and more negative
thinking. In this negative condition, everything seems
gloomy and you’re unable to think clearly or make sound
decisions.
In short, when you’re under the spell of negative emotions,
you tend to lose your sense of perspective. Therefore, if you
want to develop accurate thinking, you need to learn how to
manage your emotions more effectively.
1. Key characteristics of negative emotions
Below are some characteristics of negative emotions you
need to be aware of:
a. Negative emotions act as a spell
When you’re under the influence of negative emotions, it
might seem impossible to break free from them. You may
feel the urge to focus on the same disempowering thoughts
repeatedly.
b. Negative emotions filter your experiences
Negative emotions act as a filter that taints the quality of
your experiences. During a negative episode, you perceive
every experience through this filter. Although the world
outside may remain the same, you will experience it in a
completely different way based on how you feel.
For instance, when you’re sad, you might not enjoy the food
you eat, the movie you see, or the activities in which you
engage. You only see the negative side of things and end up
feeling trapped and powerless. On the other hand, when
you’re in a positive mood, everything in life appears better.
Food tastes great, you’re naturally friendlier, and you enjoy
all the activities you partake in.
c. Negative emotions attract more negative emotions
When you’re in a negative emotional state, you will begin to
attract more emotions on a similar “wave” (i.e., more
negative emotions). For instance, you might be in a bad
mood because your boss yelled at you at work. This may lead
you to think about some issues you have with your partner.
You may then remember your back pain and start obsessing
over it. As a result, you will feel even worse.
2. Four tips to help you overcome emotional traps
By now, you understand that your emotions can distort your
thinking. If you don’t keep them under control, they will
wreak havoc in your life. To manage your emotions more
effectively, I encourage you to do the following:
Tip #1—Recognize the idea that you are not your emotions.
Your emotions can never define you. For instance, being sad
for months doesn’t make you a lesser person than you were
when you were happy. Emotions are like clouds hiding the
sun. The sun is always there. You are the sun. Sure, your
emotions can trick you beyond anything you can imagine—
and they will—but they cannot change your essence.
Tip #2—Refrain from clustering negative emotions
together. Negative emotions attract more negative emotions.
Thus, start noticing whenever you start clustering issues
together (e.g., having back pain, hating your job and being in
the middle of an argument with your partner). Then look at
each issue separately. By doing so, you will realize that,
when taken independently, these issues might not be as big
an issue as you thought, or they are at least more
manageable. Don’t stack negative thoughts together.
Instead, compartmentalize them and deal with them
individually.
Tip #3—Avoid making important decisions when under the
spell of strong emotions. Your emotions distort your
thinking. This goes for both negative and positive emotions.
Consequently, avoid making any major decisions when
you’re experiencing highs (feeling ecstatic) or lows (feeling
depressed, hopeless, angry, et cetera). Instead, wait until you
revert to a more neutral emotional state. You’ll think much
more clearly and will make better decisions as a result. For
example:
Don’t decide to give up on your dreams when you feel
depressed. Wait until you feel better before making
such important decisions.
Don’t reply to an email that makes you angry.
Instead, wait at least 24 hours.
Don’t make any promises or major decisions just after
receiving great news, (e.g., winning the lottery).
If you avoid making any serious decisions when under the
spell of emotions, it will save you a lot of trouble.
Tip #4—Cultivate self-compassion. How often do you make
yourself miserable by figuratively beating yourself up? The
worst time to do so is when you already feel bad. This is why
I like to adopt what I call the “I’ll beat myself up later
policy”. In other words, I give myself permission to be hard
on myself later, but not when I’m in a negative emotional
state. Instead, I show myself some much needed
compassion. That’s what I encourage you to do as well.
We’ll discuss how to cultivate self-compassion in greater
depth in Part III. Empowering your model of reality.
Use the tips above to help you manage your emotions better,
and you’ll be able to make better life decisions.
Action step
Complete the exercises in your action guide:
Remember a time when everything felt hopeless or
gloomy, and you didn’t believe you could be happy
again. Then realize your negative emotions eventually
faded away.
Think of three current challenges in your life one
after the other. How does each make you feel? Now,
visualize three things you’re grateful for or excited
about. Feel better?
Think of one poor decision you made as a result of
negative emotions (anger, hopelessness, frustration
et cetera) or positive emotions (joy, euphoria,
excitement, et cetera).
For one full minute give yourself some words of
encouragement. Remind yourself that you’re doing
well, that you have noble intentions and that you’re
proud of all the things you’ve accomplished. How
does it make you feel?
Now, let’s explore additional ways you distort your thinking
by reviewing common negative thought patterns.
3. Three common negative thought patterns to avoid
As human beings, we all fall prey to a certain number of
negative thought patterns. Understanding these patterns will
help you manage your emotions further and ensure you
think more clearly.
Thought pattern #1—Generalization. This is when you
oversimplify things instead of having a more nuanced
approach. You can often tell when you generalize by noticing
your use of such words as “always” or “never”. Some
examples are:
Always:
I’m always late.
I’m always wrong.
I’m always the one who ….
Why does it always happen to me?
Never:
I will never be happy again.
I never get things right.
I will never be able to find a job like this one.
Have you ever made any of the above statements?
This type of generalization is not only inaccurate, it also
leads you to feel bad about yourself. You’re not always late,
are you? You may be late more often than you’d like to be,
but you’re also on time on many occasions. Yes, bad things
may happen to you occasionally, but this is not the default
position. Many other people face similar issues, and some
probably more than you.
Take note of whenever you use words such as “always” or
“never” because they often indicate you’re distorting the
truth. You may do this to elicit sympathy or to avoid taking
responsibility for your current situation. In any case,
generalizing behavior such as this distorts your thinking and
hampers you from achieving your future goals.
Action step
Whenever you find yourself generalizing, reframe the
sentence to reflect reality more accurately. See the examples
below:
I’m always late. —> I may be late more often than I’d like to
be, but I’m also on time on many occasions.
I’m always the one people make fun of. —> People might
make fun of me occasionally, but I’m certainly not the only
one, and it doesn’t happen all the time.
I never get things right. —> I get things wrong on some
occasions, but I get things right many times, too.
Thought pattern #2—All or nothing thinking. This is
another toxic pattern you may be falling for. All or nothing
thinking is when you believe you need to get something or
you’ll be unhappy, unworthy of love, et cetera. All or nothing
thinking is when you believe your own happiness depends on
a specific event external to you. Some examples are:
I will only be happy when I get that job.
If I can’t achieve that goal, my life is not worth living.
I need to marry that person or I will never be happy.
This is a distortion of the way life works. To live a successful
and happy life, there isn’t one specific thing you need to do,
to be, or to have. You’re not just given one shot in life. In
truth:
Your lifelong dream that fails to materialize might
actually open doors to new opportunities you didn’t
even know existed.
That dream job you didn’t get may lead you to a new
exciting career you didn’t even think possible.
Being rejected by the person you thought was your
one true love may lead you to meet someone even
more amazing.
Life isn’t an all or nothing event. This is an inaccurate way of
thinking. When you find yourself making your happiness or
self-worth dependent on one event, thing or person, take
note. Remember there are always opportunities out there.
And to be happy, there is no specific thing you need to do or
to have. If one thing doesn’t work, something else will. So
never lose your enthusiasm and avoid beating yourself up
when things don’t work out. Instead, keep believing in
yourself, keep appreciating all the things you already have,
and keep doing your best.
Action step
Using your action guide, look at each area of your life and see
how you may succumb to the all or nothing thinking.
Thought pattern #3—Dramatization. Dramatization is when
you imagine things are far worse than they actually are. We
all exaggerate things from time to time, don’t we? We make
a big deal of things that aren’t. This is especially true when
we are tired, ill or a little down. However, dramatization is
inaccurate thinking.
Imagine that your boss just yelled at you. You now picture
yourself being fired. Before realizing it, you’ve created a
mental movie of yourself being homeless. You see your wife
abandoning you, and you become scared. This is a little bit of
an exaggeration, isn’t it? It seems as though you’ve skipped
a whole lot of steps that would need to happen for you to
find yourself in that situation.
This type of thinking probably happens because of the way
our brain works. Our brain is designed to give a lot of weight
to potential threats which is how we were able to survive as a
species. To survive and reproduce, our ancestors needed to
identify any and every threat. When in doubt, they would
assume the worst. It made more sense for them to mistake a
piece of wood for a snake than the opposite.
Unfortunately, our brains still work the same way today. So
be aware of your natural tendency to envision the worse,
thank your ancestors—you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for
their survival skills—, and think more rationally and
positively. Most of the things you worry about will never
happen.
To learn how to manage your emotions more effectively and
in more detail, refer to my book, Master Your Emotions: A
Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your
Feelings.
Action step
Remember one time you worried about something that never
happened. Write it down in your action guide.
In summary, to develop accurate thinking you must become
aware of all the ways your thought process might be flawed.
When you distort reality through poor and inaccurate
thinking, the result is almost always mental suffering and
poor performance.
Now, let’s see the specific things you can do to align with
reality more effectively and achieve tangible results.
PART II
ALIGNING YOURSELF WITH
REALITY
Do you wish the world could be different with no wars or
misery? I certainly do.
Unfortunately, the reality is that wars are occurring right
now. And hundreds of millions of people live in misery. Now
what if I tell you things are exactly the way they are, even
though it’s not the way you want them to be? But I hear you
ask, “Thibaut, how can you be okay with the way the world
is?”
People suffer and that is really unfortunate, but it also
happens to be the truth.
Reality simply is. And refusing to accept that as a fact is not
only a sign of insanity, but also a sign of arrogance. It’s like
saying the world should be the way we picture it just because
that’s what we want.
Truth being said, reality can never be wrong. It has never
been and never will be. How could what actually exists not
exist?
Now, please bear with me. Understanding the concept that
reality can’t be wrong is critical because when we fail to
acknowledge reality for what it is, we live in denial. And
usually nothing constructive comes from living in denial.
1
ACCEPTING REALITY AS IT IS
The first step to achieving better results in any area of your
life is to accept reality as it is. Put differently, we need to
cultivate the most accurate model of reality possible. Because
if your model is flawed, you’ll take ineffective or even
counter-productive action and will achieve mediocre results
at best. In short, the best way to play the whole game of life
is to align yourself with reality. To “win” the game you need
to know the rules—or at least have a solid understanding of
what they are. This starts by accepting reality as it is, not by
thinking it should be any different.
1) Should vs. is
There should be no poverty. All people should be treated
equally. I should make more money. Have you ever thought
along these lines?
The problem with believing things should be different is that
it can put you in a disempowering state. It can also lead you
to overlook reality and only live in an imaginary ideal world
where everybody is happy and successful.
Now I’m not saying there is anything wrong with
envisioning a better world. I’m all for it. However, before you
do that, it is important you take a sincere and objective look
at the reality in front of you. Ignoring reality will not help
you take the appropriate action.
2) Should vs. could
A better way of thinking is to replace “should” with “could”.
While “should” implies that things aren’t the way they’re
supposed to be, “could” offers possibilities, not judgment.
You can choose to explore these possibilities, or you can
reject them.
For instance, if you say, “I should be working”, it implies
that something is wrong with the current reality of you not
working. You’re emitting a judgment (i.e., you're lazy or
undisciplined because you’re not working). On the other
hand, if you say, “I could be working”, you accept the reality
that you’re not currently working. Then you’re inviting
yourself to work if you choose to. Can you see the difference
between the two statements?
The point is, you can “should” yourself as much as you
want, but it won’t help. It will only lead you to feel guilty.
Therefore, start noticing whenever you use the word
“should”. Then try using “could” instead and see how it
makes you feel. Below are examples of the way our thinking
can change based on whether we use “should” or “could”.
I should be married. —> Something is wrong with me
for not being married.
I could be married. —> At my age, many people are
married, but I’m not. I may choose to get married at
some stage in the future. But I may also choose not to
get married at all if that’s not something I want.
I should be making more money. —> Something is
wrong with me for not being able to make more
money. The world is unfair to me.
I could be making more money. —> I’m not making as
much money as I want right now, but there are things
I can do, starting today, that will help me generate
more money in the future, such as asking for a raise,
changing career or creating my own business.
There should be no war. —> Something is wrong with
the world. It’s a violent place. It should be peaceful.
There could be no war. —> If we work toward
developing a more peaceful society, perhaps in the
future, wars might disappear or occur less frequently.
The bottom line is, in order to develop an accurate model of
reality, you must accept that things are exactly the way
they’re supposed to be right now, whether you like it or not.
This is the first step: accepting reality as it is.
Then once you recognize things are the way they are, you can
start envisioning a better future and create a blueprint to
improve things you wish would be different.
Action step
Complete the following exercises using your action guide:
Write down at least three “should” statements you
often use.
Replace “should” with “could”.
See how it makes you feel and how it changes your
thought process.
UNCOVERING YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
A. Identifying your assumptions
In Part I, we discussed how your inaccurate assumptions can
lead you to think inaccurately and develop a flawed model of
reality. Now let’s see how to identify your assumptions in
greater depth so you can develop specific and achievable
goals.
Whenever you set a life goal, you immediately start making
assumptions regarding what you need to do to achieve it.
Your assumptions may be that this goal is unrealistic and
that you will never reach it. Or they may suggest that to
obtain a specific outcome, you will need to do X, Y or Z.
For instance, let’s assume you’ve written a book and want it
to become a best-seller. Your first idea might be to go on
national TV. You think you will sell thousands of copies that
way. Or perhaps you believe that because you spent so much
time and energy writing your book—and care so much about
your readers—, it will sell gazillions of copies. It’s just a
matter of time before people find out about your books,
right?
In short, for any of your goals, you will make initial
assumptions regarding the best strategy to reach it, but
these assumptions will often be inaccurate. Now what do you
think will happen if you decide to take action based on these
weak assumptions? You’ll waste your time and energy and
will probably fail to attain your goal. Sadly, this is what
many people do, often unknowingly.
Let’s return to our previous example of writing a bestselling book. One of my writer friends went on a national TV
to promote his book. He was excited and thought it would
lead to a massive spike in sales. Unfortunately, it had a
negligible impact on sales. It turned out that appearing on
national TV wasn’t the magic solution, at least not in this
specific case. Another writer friend spent years writing his
first book, expecting to sell loads of copies due to the sheer
quality of his work. That didn’t happen either.
The bottom line is, before you start working on any goal, you
need to identify all your erroneous assumptions. Then you
need to replace them with more accurate ones. The better
you become at this “game”, the more likely you are to hit
your target.
Action step
Using your action guide, select one important goal and make
a list of all the assumptions you may be making about it.
Please note we’ll keep using this goal for future exercises.
To help you identify your assumptions, please refer to the
questions below:
What are your assumptions regarding the best ways
to reach this goal?
What strategies do you assume will work and why?
Do you think it will be easy or hard, and why?
How long do you think it will take you to reach this
goal and why?
B. Testing your assumptions
Once you have identified the assumptions you’re making
regarding your goal, the next step is to assess each one to see
how accurate it is. Don’t worry if you’re unsure about the
accuracy of your assumptions. That’s normal. As you do
more research and gather invaluable information, you’ll be
able to improve the quality and accuracy of your
assumptions. We’ll work on this throughout the book, but
for now, it’s time to work through the assessment process.
And remember, there are no wrong answers.
Action step
Look at the list of assumptions you just wrote down in
your action guide.
Next to each assumption, write down the accuracy
score you would give it on a scale from 1 to 10, (one
being completely inaccurate and 10 being one
hundred percent accurate).
REFINING YOUR MODEL OF REALITY
By now, you should have identified your current
assumptions. You should also have given each of them an
accuracy score. The next step is to challenge these
assumptions and work on implementing more accurate ones.
Below are the steps you can follow to refine your model of
reality:
Revising your assumptions.
Sharpening your thinking by asking yourself
questions.
Interviewing experienced people.
Doing your own research.
Being curious.
Listening to your emotions.
A. Revising your assumptions
Forget about your previous assumptions for a moment and
let’s start over. To do so, ask yourself the following
questions, “What do I really know for sure?” and “What is
really true?”
Let’s say you enjoy writing and would love to do it full time.
However, your original assumption is that you can’t make
money from writing. You’ll need a regular job or a few side
hustles to pay the bills. But is this assumption true? And how
do you know this for sure? Let’s do some research and find it
out, shall we?
As you do your research, you’ll discover that most writers
don’t make much money. In fact, most self-published
authors sell fewer than 250 copies of their books. For
traditionally published authors, it might be a few thousand
copies.
However, your research will also tell you that thousands of
writers do earn a living solely from their books. In fact, some
are making six or seven-figure incomes. While these writers
represent a small minority of the author population, they do
show you it’s possible.
Okay. So, you now know that thousands of writers are
making a living from their writing. But is that a lot?
Considering the number of aspiring writers, it isn’t. Does it
mean you should give up? Not necessarily. It means you need
to be realistic and work smart.
To further refine your model, keep digging deeper by asking
yourself, “What do I know for sure about these full-time
writers?” As you study them, you’ll find out commonalities
that may come in handy if you choose to become a full-time
writer yourself.
What’s more, the same process works for any other goal.
The point I’m making is that the more you drill down, the
more quality information you’ll find and the more likely
you’ll be to take the appropriate actions to reach your goal.
Remember, the idea behind refining your model of reality is
to reduce the amount of luck required to achieve your
desired results.
In conclusion, the first step toward improving your model of
reality is to ask yourself what you know for sure. After that,
you need to do the necessary research to find the accurate
answers that will help you attain your goal.
Action step
In your action guide, write down your answers to the
questions below:
What do you know for sure regarding your goal?
How can you be so certain?
B. Sharpening your thinking by asking yourself questions
Another way to improve your model of reality is by asking
yourself smart questions to guide your thinking and improve
your results. Ultimately, the most important question you
want to find answers to is:
How do I know whether my goal is realistic and whether I
will achieve it or not?
Answering the list of questions below will help you do that.
Look at your previous goal or select one of your major goals
and make sure you answer each of them using your action
guide.
Here is the list:
1) Do I believe I will achieve my goal?
On a scale from 1 to 10 (one being not at all confident and ten
being absolutely certain), how confident are you that you
will reach your goal? The more confident you are, the better.
A high level of certainty will lead you to take greater action
and will help you keep going despite multiple setbacks.
If your answer is below 7, what could you do to boost your
confidence? Could you adjust the scope of your goal, change
it a little, or give yourself more time? If your answer is 7 or
8, that’s an encouraging start. Now how could you make it 9
or 10?
In Part III. Empowering Your Model of Reality, we’ll discuss in
greater detail how you can develop rock-solid confidence to
help you improve your confidence score.
2) Do I have a track record of achieving similar goals?
If you’ve already achieved major goals in the past, you’ll
build confidence in your ability to reach your current goal. If
not, don’t worry. As you keep setting and achieving small
goals consistently, your confidence will grow. Over time,
you’ll achieve bigger and bigger goals. For more on this
subject, refer to the section, Achieving goals consistently.
3) What makes me think I will reach this goal? What concrete
evidence or tangible results are there to support this claim?
The simple fact you’re pursuing your goals means you
believe there is a chance you’ll reach them, but what makes
you think so? Where is the evidence?
To give you a personal example, one of the reasons I decided
to write full time is that I received great reviews and
encouraging messages for my first book, Goal Setting. Below
is one of them:
“I recently read your book on goal setting. Tremendous! Keep it up
man, you have a great gift of synthesizing information into pure
crystal clarity.”
If the majority of people had told me my book sucked, I
might not have gone on to become a full-time writer.
If you’ve been pursuing a goal for years, but have yet to
receive positive feedback from strangers as well as family
and friends, it’s unlikely you’ll reach your goal unless you
change your approach.
If you’re offering a product or service, positive feedback isn’t
enough. You want to get customers to:
1. Spend their hard-earned money on your
product/service, and
2. Give you positive feedback.
If you can do both, it’s a sign you might be on to something.
So, where is your evidence?
4) Do the people around me believe I will achieve my goal?
The longer you stay committed and the greater number of
important milestones you reach, the more likely it will be for
the people around you to take you seriously. If you find these
people to be unsupportive, it may be a sign that you must
boost your confidence to make them believe your story. An
effective way to do so is to take more action.
If despite early successes, your friends or family members
are still unsupportive, perhaps you need to start surrounding
yourself with more positive people. We’ll discuss how to do
this in greater detail in Part III. Empowering your model of
Reality.
5) Do I have the energy and/or time required to achieve this goal
within the set timeframe?
For you to achieve any meaningful endeavor, you will need to
devote a considerable amount of time and energy to it. Can
you really dedicate enough time and energy to your goal
right now? If not, consider revising its scope and/or setting
more realistic deadlines. Remember, we’re terrible at
assessing the amount of time or energy needed to attain our
goals.
6) How many people have achieved this goal before? How many
people are trying to achieve it now?
You want to know how tough the competition is. The more
slots are available, the easier it will be to achieve success. For
instance, only a small number of people can become
professional singers, but tens of thousands of people can be
teachers or engineers. If you enter a field with limited
openings, be prepared to do the work.
7) Who has achieved this goal before?
Do you know people who have achieved your goal or a
similar one? If not, can you find the best books, courses or
seminars from people who have been there and done that?
Remember, the last thing you want to do is reinvent the
wheel. You have more important things to do with your time.
8) Why is this goal important to me?
Why are you pursuing this specific goal as opposed to
another one? Emotions are more important than logic. The
greater the number of emotional reasons you have behind
your goal, the more motivated you’ll be.
For instance, there were many reasons I was determined to
build a successful online business around personal
development. The benefits that appealed to me the most
were:
Being able to make money doing what I love,
Feeling as though I’m making a positive impact,
Having the freedom to travel around the world,
Being able to take vacations whenever I want, and
Having the opportunities to scale my income.
When I combined all these reasons, I felt highly motivated.
What about you? Why is your goal so important to you? The
more reasons you have to reach your goal, the better.
9) If I keep doing what I’m doing every day will I achieve my
goals? If not, what exactly needs to change?
This is a great question and one I like to ask myself on a
regular basis. When you ask yourself this question, be
completely honest with yourself. If you struggle to find an
answer, keep refining your model of reality by asking smart
questions, finding role models, gathering case studies and so
on.
10) What are the best approaches/strategies to follow?
Whatever goal you’re trying to achieve, there are often a
large number of tactics you could experiment with. For
instance, let’s say you want to find clients to coach. You
could:
Attend networking events,
Organize free seminars,
Offer free sessions to promote your coaching
program,
Build your presence on LinkedIn by posting valuable
content in your niche,
Write a book in your area of expertise to get qualified
leads,
Be a guest on various podcasts in your industry,
Create a YouTube Channel to gather leads,
Create a sales page and drive traffic to it by using ads,
or
Create a website and do SEO optimization to receive
traffic from search engines.
Now if you try to do all these things at once, you will likely
fail. The best approach for you will depend on things such as:
What you think will be most effective based on your
own research,
What you enjoy doing the most, and
What you’re good at.
For instance, if you’re an extrovert, you might enjoy creating
YouTube videos, attending networking events or organizing
seminars. On the other hand, if you’re an introvert, you
might prefer running ads or writing online content.
11) What does my intuition tell me to do?
If you quiet your mind for a moment and listen to your
intuition, you might find answers to your questions. For
instance, you might experience a nagging feeling telling you
that a specific approach isn’t right for you. Conversely, you
might feel as though you’re doing exactly what you’re
supposed to do. Practice listening to your inner voice.
Intuition is often your values, ethics and strengths talking to
you and suggesting the right path for you to follow.
Answering the questions above will enable you to come up
with a more effective approach for your goals.
Action step
Answer all the questions above and add the answers to your
action guide.
C. Interviewing experienced people
The third step is to gather information from knowledgeable
people. The key is to ask them smart questions that will
enable you to improve your model.
Below are some examples of questions to ask.
1) How does this work?
For instance, how do things work in your industry? This
question will help you grasp the big picture. Having a decent
understanding of how things work will help you make better
decisions and prevent you from getting lost in the details.
You want to look at the whole forest, not just at one specific
tree.
2) What are the biggest assumptions you make? And how do you
know these are accurate or effective?
By asking the experts how they know their assumptions are
correct, they will have to explain their thought process,
giving you a deeper insight into their model of reality. Note
that it probably took them years to refine their model, both
through theoretical knowledge and actual experience. As
such, it is bound to be much more accurate than yours.
Bonus tip: Now just because they have a lot of experience
doesn’t mean their model of reality is actually one hundred
percent accurate. Some of their assumptions may be
erroneous. As such, it’s a good idea to interview many people
to get as wide an overview as possible.
3) What do I need to understand that I may not understand yet?
This question will give the interviewee the opportunity to
mention anything he or she may have forgotten.
Furthermore, it will ensure you’re not missing any
important points and help you avoid making rookie
mistakes.
4) If you were in my shoes what would you do?
This question will allow you to receive more practical advice.
By being invited to think from a different perspective, the
interviewee may provide you with more valuable
information.
5) How did you get where you are?
This question will help you zero in on what the interviewee
identifies as key to their success. But once again, it doesn’t
mean this person is completely right in his or her
assessment. To take things one step further, you can ask
them why they think each factor is important and how they
know this is the case.
6) If you were to start all over again, what would you do
differently to generate success more quickly?
This question will encourage your interviewees to identify
the key factors leading to their success in greater detail. To
pinpoint the few key activities that delivered and continue
delivering tangible results, they will have to think more
deeply.
7) If you had to choose only one activity to focus on, which one
would give you the best results?
People tend to take on too many things instead of focusing
on a few key activities. This question will help your
interviewee further identify what really matters, providing
you with additional information in the process.
If you can’t interview people, watch interviews online, read
autobiographies, et cetera, and search for the answers to the
questions mentioned above. This leads us to our next point.
Action step
Complete at least one of the following exercises (and
preferably both).
Ask each question to the relevant person/people and
write down the answers in your action guide.
Watch interviews and/or read biographies and try
answering the above questions based on the
information you’ve gathered.
D. Doing your own research
The fourth step is to conduct extensive research which
involves looking for case studies and finding the highest
quality information possible. To do so, start by asking
yourself what is the highest quality of information out there?
Perhaps it’s one or two books written by the best experts in
that field. Perhaps it’s research papers from prestigious
universities. Or perhaps it’s a course created by the number
one authority in your field. The key is to be strategic in the
way you look for information. If you fail to do so, you risk:
Feeling overwhelmed and drowning under the sea of
information available, and
Consuming low-quality information that could
mislead you or prevent you from achieving tangibly
positive results.
By taking a moment to identify the right approach, you’ll
save yourself time and energy down the road. For example,
as I was pursuing my goals of becoming a full-time writer, I
read books from some of the most successful indie authors.
One piece of advice I kept hearing them say was: the best
marketing tool is to write another book. Many successful
indie authors produce books consistently. They often choose
to write another book over revising an older one. So I decided
to do the same.
Now it doesn’t mean everybody should do the same thing.
Some writers might choose to spend most of their time
marketing an existing book to land speaking gigs or sell their
products or services. This may be an effective strategy, too.
Earlier, we discovered that while most writers don’t make
much money, a few thousand make a decent living from
their writing. As we delve deeper with our research, we’ll
come across a Facebook group called 20BooksTo50k®. This
group contains over 35,000 writers, some of whom are fulltime authors. Being a member of this group, reading the allstar threads and taking consistent action, gives us a lead
over the crowd.
Detailed research is critical. It will give you an edge over your
competitors. No matter how competitive your field may be,
only a fraction of the “contestants” will make the effort to
find the right information. Among these people, a tiny
minority will act on the information they find and have a
strong enough mindset to succeed. It’s not to say you are
absolutely guaranteed to achieve your goal, but it does mean
there are many things you can do to improve your odds of
success. And doing your own detailed research is a great
start.
So when it comes to achieving your wildest goals, leave
nothing out. Do everything in your power to gather the right
information and cultivate the most accurate model of reality
possible.
In Part III of this book, Empowering your model of reality, we’ll
discuss the specific things you can do to turbocharge your
model and maximize your chances of success.
To learn more on that topic, you can also refer to my book,
Success is Inevitable: 17 Laws to Unlock Your Hidden Potential,
Skyrocket Your Confidence and Get What You Want from Life.
Now let’s see how you can find the right information to
refine your model of reality.
1. How to find high-quality information
As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out”. To ensure you
build the most accurate model of reality possible, you need
quality input. That is, you must gather the highest quality
information available.
To do so, I invite you to bear in mind the hierarchy of
information I introduced in Master Your Focus, the third book
in the “Master Your …” series. Roughly speaking,
information can be sorted as follows (from low quality to
high quality):
Blogs/articles/YouTube videos - provide tips but
often remain superficial or lack structure, making it
difficult to achieve long-term results with the
information presented.
Free courses - offer a little information and in a more
structured way.
Books - can offer in-depth information, but they are
only effective when the reader completes the
recommended exercises.
Paid courses - offer in-depth information in a wellstructured way, increasing the odds the students will
take action. Also, because people pay for them, they
have “buy-in” and tend to take more action.
High-end courses - can offer in-depth, high-quality
information in a highly structured way. These courses
can also provide group coaching sessions and other
activities that strengthen accountability and generate
excitement. They encourage people to take serious
action due to the higher entry price.
Mentoring - allows students to absorb years of
knowledge through face-to-face interaction with a
highly experienced tutor. Potential benefits include
intense shortening of the learning curve,
implementation of a highly effective strategy and a
powerful shift in the student’s mindset.
Mastermind groups - allow students to learn from
highly successful people with similar goals and
extensive knowledge. They foster accountability and
boost motivation.
One-on-one coaching - allows students to work
individually with an expert and received instant
feedback as well as highly customized advice. These
sessions offer access to the best strategy available and
create strong accountability.
For major goals, you might consider purchasing courses or
working with a coach or mentor. Whatever you choose to do,
seek ways to shorten your learning curve.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following question:
What is the highest quality of information out there and
where can you find it?
Now let’s see how to ensure that the information you gather
is not only high-quality, but also relevant to your situation.
2. How to find the right information for you
Finding high-quality information isn’t enough. What’s even
more important is making sure this information is what you
really need right now and that it will work for you. To do so:
Make sure you have a clearly defined goal,
Understand how the information applies to you
specifically, and
Ensure the information is up to date.
a. Make sure you have a clearly defined goal
The first thing to do before you can gather relevant
information is to know what you want it to do for you. Why
do you need it in the first place?
Do you want to learn about the theory, or do you need
practical steps to follow right away? Do you want in-depth
knowledge on a topic you’re already knowledgeable in, or do
you want easily digestible information to get you started?
The information you need will vary based on your goals and
your initial expertise. Therefore, knowing what you’re trying
to achieve will not only help you find the right information,
but it will also ensure it’s the right information for you right
now.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following questions:
What exactly is my goal? What do I hope to create by
using this information? For instance, it could be
writing a research paper, starting a new diet or
teaching a concept to someone.
If I could obtain the perfect information that would
guarantee I achieve my goal, what would it look like?
How would it be structured? These questions will help
you identify the information you really need and
come up with the best strategy to find that
information (e.g., asking a friend, consulting specific
documents, visiting relevant websites, et cetera).
b. Understand how the information applies to you
One of the issues with any piece of information is that the
source, whether a person or an organization, is inevitably
biased. The creator of any piece of content has their own life
experiences, values, personality and agenda. As such, their
recommendations might not be what you need right now.
After all, you also have your own experiences, values,
personality and goals.
Therefore because someone pitches a seemingly once-in-alifetime opportunity during a webinar, it doesn’t mean you
should jump in, no matter how excited you feel in the
moment. Instead, you should take time to select goals that
align with your values, passion, personal mission and/or
natural strengths. Otherwise, the opportunities you go after
are unlikely to work for you.
Below are a couple of questions to help you select the
information that can apply to you specifically.
Does the recommended blueprint or advice apply in my specific
case?
In other words, do you have the experience, strengths or
personality needed to make this method work for you? While
a strategy might be effective for others, it might not be
effective for you—at least not right now.
Perhaps the methodology plays on your weakness rather
than leverages your strengths. For instance, you may be
naturally gifted at writing, but terrible at speaking. If so,
being told you should cold-call prospects to grow your
business might not work for you. Or perhaps you lack the
experience required to make a particular strategy work. If so,
you may need more foundation level information before you
can move on to more advanced strategies.
Do I have a genuine desire to take action on what I’ve learned?
If for whatever reason, you don’t feel motivated, determine
whether the approach you’re taking is the right one for you.
Perhaps it’s something you think you should do rather than
something you want to do. Or perhaps you find the approach
unethical which creates inner resistance and prevents you
from moving forward. Also, whenever necessary, revise your
strategy or change your goal. Forcing yourself to push
forward with a goal that is uninspiring or out of alignment
with your core values will, in most cases, lead you to give up
sooner or later.
Action step
Answer the question below using your action guide:
Does the recommended blueprint, program or advice
apply in my specific case?
Do I have the desire to take action on that
information? If not, why not? What changes do I need
to make?
c. Ensure the information is up to date
A piece of content might be outdated by the time you read it,
and realizing this isn’t always straightforward. For example,
in my industry, people who sold loads of books five years ago
may offer outdated courses. These courses can leave many
aspiring writers confused. Sure, they may contain useful
information, but the obsolete part of the course can also
prevent the aspiring writer from developing an accurate
model of reality—as it is today.
The point is, you should make sure the information you’re
consuming is still relevant and valid. Otherwise, it may leave
you overwhelmed and confused. In many cases, technologyrelated information can become outdated pretty quickly. For
instance, online marketing strategies that worked six
months ago may not work that well today.
Whenever you consume information, look at the date it was
created. Then ask yourself whether it is still relevant.
Remember, inaccurate information will lead you to take
ineffective action which will prevent you achieving your
goals. To enhance the accuracy of your model of reality,
make a conscious effort to gather the latest information that
is relevant to you.
Action step
To ensure the information is up to date, you can ask yourself
some of the questions below using your action guide:
Is this information still relevant today?
How can I make sure it actually is still relevant?
If I’m unable to answer the two questions above, do I
know someone who has the answer?
Bonus tip: how to deal with being overwhelmed
With the volume of information readily available today, it is
easy to feel lost. Feeling overwhelmed is often a sign you
should pause and think. It could be an invitation to
reevaluate your overall strategy, reconnect with your original
vision or reorganize your notetaking or filing system.
Therefore whenever you feel overwhelmed, take note. It’s
usually an indication that you’re consuming more
information than you can swallow right now. If so, follow the
steps below:
Stop what you’re doing,
Take a step back and refocus on the big picture,
Identify what you’re trying to accomplish and what
the final output should look like, and
Pinpoint the specific information you need to reach
your goal.
I encourage you to take a pen and piece of paper to answer
the questions above.
E. Being curious
To refine your model of reality, you must be on constant
lookout for new information that could help you reach your
goals. Now, this doesn’t mean you should fall for the Shiny
Object Syndrome and jump from one potentially exciting
development to the next. However, it does mean that you
should observe trends and keep a close eye on what
successful people are doing in your area of interest. To
achieve demanding goals, you must be willing to become the
most knowledgeable person in your field. Therefore:
If you want to make money with your art, learn
everything you can about the way to do so.
If you want to be a coach, learn everything you can
about that profession.
If you want to be a trader, learn everything you can
about trading.
While this is common sense, it’s not always common
practice. To build a proper model of reality that will deliver
tangible results, you must delve deep and keep gathering
insights and key information. Experts are continuously
learning. They never stop improving their skills. Ironically
while they’re probably the ones needing it the least, they’re
the ones studying the most.
So start becoming an expert in your field, too. Be curious
about your goals. Learn as much as you can. Look for the best
approaches and strategies. Identify areas in which you can
improve. Never assume you’re as good as you can be.
Instead, demand more of yourself and you will inevitably
become better and move closer to your goals.
Also, avoid making assumptions prematurely. During the
process of alignment with reality, it is vital you keep
experimenting and stay open-minded. When it comes to
selling products or services, one of the biggest mistakes I see
is when people project their way of thinking onto others. For
example, these individuals may assume that because a
certain marketing strategy won’t work on them, it won’t
work on others. This is a dangerous assumption to make.
The smarter way is to make as few assumptions as possible,
remain curious and experiment with new ideas on a regular
basis.
For example, when Amazon opened its ads platform in
Germany, I started promoting my English-language books
there immediately. I hoped to make an extra $50 to $100 per
month. I didn’t expect to make much since I have yet to
translate any of my books into German. The first month I
made around $1,000 in sales. Meanwhile, I saw writers in
Facebook groups still wondering whether they should bother
advertising their English-language books in Germany. The
point is, we can all make poor assumptions. What we could
do instead is to test. So rather than making assumptions, we
should be running experiments.
Think that person isn’t into you? Go ask them.
Think your boss will not give you a raise? Ask for one.
Think your client will not pay you for additional
services? Offer them additional services and see what
happens.
Poor assumptions lead to ineffective actions (or no action at
all) which generate poor results. Therefore never stop
experimenting. Be open-minded and verify any assumptions
you may hold by taking action and testing them.
Action step
Remain curious by engaging in the following activities:
Stay up to date by checking out new publications on a
regular basis.
Identify the experts in your industry and follow them.
Challenge your assumptions regularly and revise your
strategy as necessary.
See how you can apply ideas or strategies from areas
that are unrelated to your goal.
Look for trends and practice predicting what could
happen in the coming years.
F. Listening to your emotions
Just because an answer is logical doesn’t necessarily mean
it’s what you should be doing. Human beings tend to be
more emotional than rational. More often than not, we make
decisions based on feelings rather than logic.
Now why does it matter?
Because to achieve any goal in your life, you must ensure
that you have strong emotional reasons for doing so. Logic
itself will not be sufficient. For instance, you may find a
wonderful business opportunity that could make you a lot of
money. However, if you don’t feel pulled toward it, you
won’t take the necessary action to succeed.
Beware of things that sound good on paper. Personally, I
don’t just look at the most profitable activity or what people
around me tell me I should do. I focus on the activities I’m
really excited about. If something excites me, I’ll be able to
stick to it for long enough to achieve results over time. On
the other hand, if I choose to do something just for the
financial reward or because it’s what others tell me to do, I
will likely give up before completion.
For example, a business consultant told one of my coaching
clients, a film producer, to create TV commercials as a way to
generate cash flow for his business. At the time, this made
perfect sense since TV commercials pay well, and it wouldn’t
take him that much time to produce them. But guess what?
As far as I know, my client never got around doing it. Why?
Because he wasn’t interested in making TV commercials.
The takeaway here is, you must take into consideration how
you feel about a particular goal. You can have all the support
you need and the best information out there, but if you
aren’t motivated, you will never achieve your goal and will
only end up wasting your time and resources.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following questions:
How motivated do you feel about your goal?
What could you do to boost your motivation? Could
you reframe your goal, find other reasons to
incentivize yourself, or change it altogether?
In summary, to refine your model of reality you could:
1. Challenge your assumptions and identify what’s
really true and what is not.
2. Ask yourself smart questions that guide your thinking
and boost your results.
3. Interview knowledgeable people in your field.
4. Find the highest quality information possible through
extensive research.
5. Don’t assume. Test, test, test. Be curious. Avoid
making inaccurate assumptions.
6. Listen to your emotions. How you feel is more
important than what you think you should do.
Remember, the more aligned you are with reality, the better
results you’re likely to obtain.
4
AVOIDING COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS AND
DELUSIONAL THINKING
Are you really putting in all the effort required to achieve
your goal, or do you merely think you are?
To attain ambitious goals, you must be willing to face reality.
You should continuously attempt to align yourself with
reality and ask yourself whether your strategy and level of
action match your dream. Sadly, many people have
misconceptions that prevent them from taking the actions
required to achieve their goals. In this section, we’ll go over
four common ones.
Misconception #1— I deserve to be successful.
Misconception #2 — I do great work, therefore I
should be successful.
Misconception #3 — I’m just one breakthrough away
from …
Misconception #4 — I’m already good enough and
don’t need to improve.
Misconception #1—I deserve to be successful
Many people have an entitlement mentality. These
individuals believe they deserve an exciting job, great health
and their fair share of happiness and success. Sometimes
they also believe they should be rewarded in some capacity
just because they care about a cause.
When I started self-publishing books, I was excited about
the opportunity to help others by giving them practical tips
and insights about personal development. I cared as much
about my readers as the most successful indie writers in my
field. Consequently, I deserved to make good money, right?
Wrong.
Just because we care about something doesn’t mean we’re
entitled to anything. Sure, caring is the first step toward
creating valuable products or services that could generate
income in the mid-to-long term. But it’s not enough. The
second step is to take action and put in the time and energy
required to reach our goal.
If we care about people and are truly committed to making a
difference in the world, we should do whatever it takes. We
must show the world we mean business. Just because we
have noble intent doesn’t mean we deserve success.
So how serious are you about reaching your goals? What are
you willing to do to achieve them?
Misconception #2—I do great work therefore, I should be
successful
Just because you produce high-quality work doesn’t
guarantee you’ll be successful in your endeavors. There are
many talented painters, gifted writers and singers, and
brilliant inventors who will remain unknown for the rest of
their lives.
A writer once complained her finance book didn’t sell well.
Yet, she was convinced it was better than Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
the book ranked number one in the field. The author, Robert
T. Kiyosaki, told her he was a best-selling author, not a bestwriting one. His book might not have been the best written
one, but it was marketed effectively, allowing it to sell
extremely well. The point is, doing great work is important,
but it’s often insufficient. You also need to promote your
work effectively if you wish to have any impact.
Also, creating good work is not a one-time thing. You have
to produce quality work consistently and repeatedly. For
example, only a tiny minority of writers become successful
with their first book, no matter how well-written it may be.
But writers who release books consistently and promote
them diligently can achieve success, even if their book is not
the best out there.
Misconception #3—I’m just one breakthrough away from …
After all these years of hard work, you’re now one
breakthrough away from “making it”. Or are you?
The problem is, you’ve been in the same situation for years.
For every new product, service or marketing campaign you
launched, you thought you would finally get the recognition
you deserve. But that long-awaited breakthrough never
arrived.
Here is the truth. If you’ve been one breakthrough away
from reaching your goal for too long, it’s likely you’re
nowhere near success. Your breakthrough might not be
coming any time soon (if ever). Don’t get me wrong,
patience and perseverance are critical. However, it doesn’t
mean that patience and perseverance will work in your
current situation.
This is where it can get tricky. I believe the key to knowing
whether you should keep going on the same path or not is to
look at your situation as objectively as possible. To do so, ask
yourself some of the following questions:
What makes me believe that if I keep doing what I’m
doing I will eventually reach my goal? Where is the
concrete evidence?
How long have I been working on this particular goal?
And why didn’t I get the breakthrough I needed
earlier?
What tangible results have I achieved and what key
milestones have I reached so far? How powerful are
they in terms of indicating that I am on the right
track and should keep going?
Am I really putting in all the time and energy required
to attain my goal? Am I doing what successful people
in my field do? If not, what could I start doing now, or
what could I do differently?
If you think you’re close to having the breakthrough you’ve
been waiting for, check that this is actually the case.
Otherwise, you’ll risk wasting even more time.
Misconception #4—I’m already good enough and don’t
need to improve
Thinking you’re good at what you do doesn’t mean it’s
actually the case. Perhaps you aren’t as good as you think.
When I started my blog in 2014, I thought my articles were
great. When I read some of them a few years later, I was
really disappointed. I could see so many issues that I was
unable to identify at the time.
That’s why you should always aim to improve. World-class
performers,
whether
athletes,
singers
or
actors,
continuously strive to become better. Why shouldn’t you? If
your goal is that important to you, do the work needed to
become the best you possibly can.
To summarize, most misconceptions are due to two main
factors:
1. Arrogance/pride. We assume we deserve success and
we think we are better than others, or we believe we
shouldn’t have to work that hard.
2. Delusion. We have completely unrealistic
expectations, and we fail to understand what it takes
to reach our goals.
To get rid of these misconceptions, we must humble
ourselves and be willing to learn from our mistakes. We must
set our egos aside and listen to any feedback we receive.
Then we must sharpen our thinking and take consistent
action toward our goals, replace delusion with more realistic
expectations and build the true confidence that comes from
actual experience (see also the section, How your ego affects
your thinking).
Action step
On a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being irrelevant and 10 being spot
on), rate how each of these four misconceptions applies to
your specific situation. Write down your answers in your
action guide.
HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE PROCESS
Now that you have refined your model of reality, you must
put in place an effective process to help you achieve your
goal(s). An effective process is one that, when followed on a
regular basis (often daily), leads you to reach your goals or at
least to maximize your chance of success.
Here is a great question that may help you understand
whether your process is accurate:
“If I keep doing what I’m doing today or this week, will I
accomplish my goal?”
If your answer here is “no” or “I’m not sure”, you might
need to improve your process.
To implement an effective process, you must identify the key
tasks that will enable you to move from where you are now
to where you want to be in the future. Sometimes they are
straightforward—for me, it’s writing—sometimes they
aren’t.
In his book, High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard talks
about the “big five moves”. His main argument is that there
are usually five major projects or tasks that when completed
successfully allow people to achieve their goal.
When he decided to be a New York Times best-selling
author, Burchard interviewed several best-selling authors to
identify what they did specifically. He then concluded that he
should focus on the following tasks:
1. Finish writing a good book,
2. Self-publish or get an agent if you want a major
publishing deal,
3. Start blogging and posting to social media and use
these to build an email list,
4. Create a book promotion page and offer great bonuses
to entice people to buy the book, and
5. Get five to ten people with a big email list to promote
the book.
By focusing on these five big moves, he was able to make his
book, The Millionaire Messenger, a New York Times bestseller.
Note that an effective process is different from an easy one.
Some of your key moves may be simple while others may be
really challenging. For instance, writing a good book is easier
said than done. And finding five to ten influencers to
promote your book can be incredibly difficult, especially if
you’re just getting started. However, knowing what to focus
on will allow you to direct most of your time and energy
toward activities that really count.
The bottom line is, for whatever goals you have, there are
usually a few key tasks that will generate the desired
tangible results. Your job is to find them and create an
effective process around them.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down all the things you could
do to achieve your goal. Don’t censure or limit yourself. Just
include everything that comes to mind. Try to produce at
least ten to twenty actions.
A. Narrowing your options
You should now have a long list of actions you could take to
reach your goal. The next step is to start eliminating the
nonessential tasks so that only the most effective actions
remain. To narrow your options, you need to establish a clear
strategy. Having a strategy will help you determine your best
plan of action and perhaps more importantly, it will also
identify what you should avoid doing.
1. The importance of having a clear strategy
Many people fall prey to short-lived tactics and other
gimmicks, jumping from one “sure thing” to the next, never
achieving anything significant. For instance, they’ll jump
from one fad diet to next will abandon one training course
for a new (seemingly) more exciting program or will give up
on a challenging project to start a new one. This type of
behavior is often referred to as the “Shiny Object
Syndrome”.
Generally speaking, the less clear your strategy is, the more
likely you are to become distracted by new shiny objects,
concepts or fads. To avoid this, it’s critical you spend time
creating a well-defined strategy that you genuinely believe
will enable you to achieve your goals. The more you trust
your strategy, the easier it will be to reject other approaches,
no matter how promising they may appear.
a. Strategy vs. tactic
Many people fail to grasp the difference between a strategy
and a tactic which is a serious issue. Let’s briefly go over
what strategies and tactics are.
Strategy: A strategy is a concerted plan designed to reach a
long-term goal. It consists of a set of coordinated actions
that (you hope) will lead you to achieve your goal. The key
phrase here is “coordinated actions”. You’re not trying a
bunch of random things hoping for the best. Each of your
moves is part of a clear and effective strategy and, as such,
you can explain to anybody why exactly you’re undertaking a
specific activity and how it fits into your overall strategy.
Tactic: A tactic is an action that is part of an overall strategy.
It’s only one of several actions your overall strategy consists
of.
The problem occurs when you use tactics as if they were
independent pieces you can pick and assemble together. In
truth, a tactic in itself usually has little or no value. It’s only
relevant when combined with other tactics in a coordinated
manner (i.e., as part of a sound, cohesive strategy).
For instance, one of my major goals is to become the number
one self-help indie author on the entire Amazon US store.
My current strategy to achieve that goal is to:
Release books every two months or so in the self-help niche
and advertise them heavily using the Amazon ads platform
with the intention of riding the Amazon algorithm in the
mid-to-long term.
If I suddenly relied on tactics such as organizing seminars or
shooting videos to sell more books, my actions would be out
of alignment with my overall strategy. Here, to stick to my
strategy, I need to write and publish books consistently and
to optimize my ads.
Now you might wonder how I know my current strategy will
allow me to become the number one self-help indie author.
Well I don’t know for sure. However, my decision is based on
the solid assumptions I’ve been refining over the past few
years.
Let me share some of them to illustrate the importance of
having good assumptions before establishing any long-term
strategy.
Assumption #1: The Amazon algorithm will sell books for
me
How I know this:
I’ve read many books from established indie authors
who have a decent grasp of the way the Amazon
algorithm works.
I’ve noticed a few indie authors have a couple of
books that have been selling extremely well for
several years. Because they don’t have a huge
platform, it’s unlikely they heavily promote their
books outside of the Amazon ecosystem (i.e., Amazon
is indeed doing the heavy lifting for them and if it
works for other authors, why wouldn’t it work for
me?).
I now have a few books that have been selling
consistently for months which tends to confirm that
assumption.
Assumption #2: The more books, the better
How I know this:
Most successful indie writers (whether fiction or nonfiction),
argue that the best marketing tool for an author is to publish
another book, many of them having written dozens of their
own. I believe this is key since there is some luck involved in
the success of any book. Consequently, the more books I
publish, the more likely I am to have a winner. In addition,
the more books I write, the better I become at writing which
increases the likelihood my readers will enjoy my books and
recommend them to others.
For instance, I only started seeing decent sales after
publishing my seventh book. And my ninth book, Master Your
Emotions, has been very popular on Amazon. It was even
picked up by several foreign publishers.
Of course, writing more books is not necessarily the best
solution. It all depends on your strategy. Some people will
use their book to promote their products and services,
making a lot of money on the backend. This is fine, too. It’s
just a different strategy.
Assumption #3: I have what it takes
How I know this:
I’ve received enough positive feedback and have made
enough sales to know my goal is achievable.
In the past, I’ve written good quality books within
two months or so. Therefore, I know I can repeat the
process.
I’ve developed the mindset required to hit my goal,
and I firmly believe I have enough self-discipline and
resourcefulness to be successful. As proof, I worked
on my business twenty to thirty hours a week for over
a year while holding down a full-time job.
The assumptions described above led me to believe that my
goal was realistic (although not easy) and my strategy is
sound.
What about you? Do you have a clear strategy consisting of
well-coordinated tactics, or do you rely on ninja tricks and
short-lived gimmicks? And how do you know your strategy
is sound? What assumptions is it based on and what evidence
do you have that these assumptions are accurate?
b. Your strategy determines what not to do
Having a clear strategy also means identifying what you
should not do. For example, if I did everything under the sun
to boost my sales, it would mean I had no defined strategy.
Once I’ve established a specific strategy, I avoid doing
anything that doesn’t fit into it. For instance, here is what I
decided not to do (except in rare cases):
Use social media (Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, et
cetera) to promote my books.
Go on podcasts.
Record YouTube videos.
Organize seminars.
Run webinars.
Write blog posts.
Get traditionally published.
Get my books into libraries.
Now to implement my strategy successfully, I also need to
rely on a variety of tactics. For these tactics to work, they
must be part of my overall strategy. For example, there is
nothing wrong with doing podcast interviews, writing blog
posts or tweeting daily. However, none of these activities fit
into my strategy of writing and releasing books consistently.
As such, I have decided they should be avoided.
The bottom line is, to achieve tangible results, you must
focus on a few activities for a long enough period of time.
The same way you can’t cut down a tree by hitting different
spots with each ax swing, you can’t make significant
progress by using unrelated tactics one after another. Yet
this is what many people do. They spread themselves too
thin, doing way too many things. This lack of focus prevents
them from having major breakthroughs in their lives and in
their businesses. If you don’t have a well-defined strategy,
the same thing will probably happen to you, too.
As an illustration of this, a short while ago I was listening to
a webinar run by an experienced book marketer. I felt
completely overwhelmed just listening to the sheer number
of things I was supposed to do if I wanted to be successful.
She suggested I should:
Create a blog and update it consistently,
Publish guest posts on other people’s blogs,
Build an email list,
Create book trailers and post them on YouTube,
Go to events,
Set up webinars,
Host Facebook Lives,
Connect with influencers,
Run ads (Amazon, Facebook, BookBub, et cetera),
Develop a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Pinterest et cetera,
Get more reviews,
Get my books into bookstores and libraries, and
Send out press releases.
If you were
overwhelmed?
an
aspiring
writer,
wouldn’t
you
feel
Then she proceeded to tell the audience that they could hire
her if they needed help. Of course, they needed help! How
could they possibly manage to do all these things by
themselves?
Now the interesting part is, I’m a full-time writer and do
precious few of these things. In fact, I:
Barely post on social media,
Seldom blog,
Almost never go on podcasts,
Don’t do Facebook Lives or record videos,
Never send press releases,
Don’t try to get my books into libraries,
Never organize events, and
I never run webinars or seminars.
I simply write more books, run ads, build my email list and,
occasionally, connect with a few writers. And I know other
successful indie writers in my field who do the same. Now it
doesn’t mean other activities won’t work, it just means they
must be part of a long-term strategy.
What about you? What strategy do you think would work best
for you? What things should you not do?
If you want to learn how to get rid of the Shiny Object
Syndrome and stop spreading yourself too thin, refer to the
third book in this series, Master Your Focus.
Action step
Using your action guide, complete the following exercises:
Review the ideas you came up with in the previous
exercise.
Come up with at least three possible strategies by
combining some of your ideas in a coherent way.
For each strategy, take a moment to think of all the
things this strategy suggests you should not be doing.
B. Putting in place an effective process
1. Process goals vs. outcome goals
It is easy to become obsessed by results. However, you don’t
have one hundred percent control over the outcome of any of
your goals. You cannot be certain you will make a specific
sum of money, sell a certain number of products or lose a set
amount of weight. However, what you can do is put a specific
process in place to improve your chances of success. For
instance, I cannot be sure that I will sell 100,000 books in
2020 (outcome goal), but I can:
Release six books and two boxsets,
Translate three books or more in Spanish, German
and French, and
Spend ten hours a week optimizing my ads.
All the above goals are process goals. As such, I have
absolute control over them. I believe achieving them (among
other things) will support my overall outcome goal of selling
100,000 books this year.
Process goals help remove uncertainty and release selfimposed pressure coming from focusing solely on the
outcome. To achieve any outcome goal, all you can ever do is:
Identify the most effective process possible,
Set process goals that will help you achieve your
outcome goals,
Create daily habits related to your goal,
Stay consistent over the long term until you reach
your goal, and
Refine your process when necessary based on the
feedback you receive.
Now you won’t always hit your goals, but if you develop an
effective process and implement a solid daily routine, you
will inevitably make progress toward them.
To sum up, set a direction by having a very specific outcome
goal (e.g., making $100,000, writing six books, losing twenty
pounds, et cetera), then implement a process to maximize
your chance for success. Finally, spend most of your time
and energy focusing on the process. Don’t let the lack of
short-term results affect you. Stick to the process, remain
consistent, and you’ll put yourself in the best possible place
to make significant progress.
For instance, processes could be things such as:
Writing for forty-five minutes every morning,
Cold-calling five prospects every day,
Replacing sugary drinks with water during your
meals, or
Going to the gym three times a week.
Once you have determined the effective process for your
goals, make sure you stick with your strategy. Make sure you
evaluate your progress based on how well you’re sticking to
the process, not based on the short-term results you attain.
When necessary, refine your process to confirm its
effectiveness. For instance, you may need to spend more
time writing every day. Or you may discover that calling five
prospects isn’t enough to hit your target. As a result, you
might choose to increase the number of cold calls or adjust
your long-term goal.
Action step
Complete the exercise below, referring to your action guide:
Review the strategies you’ve already identified and
select the one you believe to be the best.
Write down the process you think you need to
implement to make that strategy work (e.g., what you
need to do every day/regularly to maximize your
chances for success).
C. Cultivating long-term thinking
Humans aren’t wired to think long term. If anything, we’re
designed to give more importance to the short term which is
why many of us have such a hard time delaying gratification.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in one of the following
situations:
You spend all your money, despite knowing you
should save for a rainy day.
You keep eating unhealthy food, despite knowing you
should take better care of your health.
You binge-watch Netflix programs until the middle of
the night, knowing you should go to bed.
To develop an accurate model of reality, you must change
your relationship with time and actively work on overcoming
your biases and natural tendencies.
1. Why thinking long term is critical
One of the laws I discuss in my book Success is Inevitable, is
the “Law of Long-Term Thinking”. I believe this is one of
the most important laws when it comes to success. People
who can delay gratification and think long term will almost
always be more successful in the long run than people who
can’t. Having a long-term perspective, these individuals
adopt a better overall strategy for their life and make wiser
decisions. For example, they might save more money, invest
in their own education or eat healthier food than they
otherwise would.
However as human beings, we often fail to embrace patience
and reap all the benefits that come with it, which brings us
to our next point.
2. The value of patience
Most of us struggle to understand how long-term thinking
works and why it’s so powerful. We overestimate what we
can do in one year, but underestimate what we can do in five
or ten years. We are caught up in short-term thinking and
consider our most ambitious goals as impossible. Seeing only
the obstacles ahead of us, we feel discouraged or even
powerless.
Interestingly, the younger we are, the more distorted our
perception of time tends to be. Take teenagers, for instance.
They have decades ahead of them, yet they want everything
right away. They resent their parents for not letting them go
out, or they can’t wait to reach the age of maturity so that
they can drive a car and become independent.
This chronic lack of perspective does not just apply to
teenagers though. It applies to everyone. Today, a fortyyear-old person has, on average, quite a few more decades to
live. That’s a lot of time, but how often do such people feel as
though it’s already too late, that they don’t have enough
time?
Here is the good news. You don’t need twenty years to
transform your life. You can make drastic changes in just a
few years. So even if you happen to be in your fifties, sixties
or even seventies, you still have time. If you were truly
committed to making changes in your life, imagine where
you could be in just three to five years, let alone a decade or
more.
3. The trap of unrealistic expectations
Many people have unrealistic expectations. This is especially
true when they start a new venture. It was certainly the case
when I started out. When I started a blog a few years ago, I
thought it would be a big success. Every time I published an
article I thought, “This is it! People are going to love it. This
one’s going viral.”
It never happened.
The bottom line is, when you start something, you have no
idea what you don’t know. Often, you fail to realize exactly
what it takes to be successful. This may lead you to give up
prematurely when you don’t see the results you think you
deserve. You may even believe something is wrong with you.
This false concept is reinforced by all the so-called gurus
who promise quick results with the minimum of effort.
No. Nothing is wrong with you. If you’re struggling, that’s
probably because it’s part of the process. Fortunately, they
are many things you can do to improve your results.
However, you still need to follow a specific process and do
the work—there is no way around it.
A short while ago, I came across a sales pitch that made me
cringe. It was one of those pitches written by expert
copywriters who are selling you the dream that you can
make tons of money without doing much work. The main
message was that you can make $10,000 a month in
“passive” income by writing short books. Just one book
written over the weekend could potentially make you
$10,000 per month for years to come. Yes, that’s right, you
read that correctly. Amazing, isn’t it? I wonder why I’ve
bothered spending years writing books when all I needed to
do was to write a few short books over the weekend.
This is a perfect example of someone pitching you a terrible
model of reality that will never lead you to any tangible
positive results. If you buy into this idea that you can make
$10,000 a month from publishing a few short books, you will
start thinking something is wrong with you when you fail to
achieve the results you were promised.
Now you will inevitably have unrealistic expectations as you
get started, but the key is to:
Maintain a long-term focus,
Continuously refine your model of reality, and
Stick to your process day after day, even in the
absence of immediate results.
4. Why worthy goals take time and effort
Patience is critical because to achieve any worthy goal
requires a great deal of time and effort. In fact, this is how
you know a goal is worth pursuing in the first place. You
can’t expect to design your dream career, build fulfilling
relationships or become financially independent without
putting in the work, can you? So if it’s hard and progress is
slow, that’s okay. In most cases, this is how it should be.
I credit a large part of my success as an indie author to my
ability to think long term. In my first book, Goal Setting
published in 2015, I wrote that I wanted to become one of the
best known personal development experts in the world. At
the time, I had no network, no followers and no prior
experience of writing books. I wasn’t even writing in my
mother tongue! However, I was willing to work hard and
spend as many years as necessary to achieve my goal. As I’m
writing this book, I’ve sold close to 100,000 copies of my
books and signed foreign deals with Russian, Brazilian,
Vietnamese, Indian and Japanese publishers. I think it’s a
good start. But it certainly didn’t happen overnight. It took
me three years before I started making money from my
writing.
Note that any major life-changing goals will probably take
three to five years to achieve (and sometimes more).
Therefore, if you really want to achieve something important
and significant, give yourself ample time to make it happen.
Think long term. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. You have
more time than you think. If you keep moving forward,
putting one foot after the other every day, you’ll find
yourself accomplishing far more than you could ever
imagine.
The point is, don’t let short-termism distort your reality and
make you feel as though you don’t have enough time. Do the
work every day and let the magic of “compounding” work in
your favor. The more consistent you can be, the more
momentum you’ll build and the more impressive your
results will be over time.
To learn in greater detail how to build momentum and
sustain motivation long term, refer to the second book in
this series, Master Your Motivation: A Practical Guide to Unstick
Yourself, Build Momentum and Sustain Long-Term Motivation.
Action step
Using your action guide, complete the sentence below with
as many answers as you can think of:
If I was better at thinking long term, I would …
5. How to transition from short-term to long-term thinking
While some people may be better than others at thinking
long term, I believe long-term thinking is a skill anyone can
acquire. In this section, we’ll discuss six specific things you
can do to develop that skill. These things are:
Creating a long-term vision.
Thinking of your long-term goals often.
Dedicating time to focus on the big picture.
Learning to love the process.
Letting go of the fear of missing out.
Reminding yourself to be patient.
a. Creating a long-term vision
Clearly, the first step to becoming better at projecting
yourself into the future is to create a long-term vision. It’s
difficult, if not impossible, to think in the long term without
having a long-term vision to strive for. Without a clear
vision, you risk doing “busywork” that will often be out of
alignment with your goals. You need to make sure that the
things you work on today are moving you closer to your
ultimate vision.
Action step
Think of a major goal. Then using your action guide, answer
the following questions:
What’s the ultimate vision behind your goal?
How can you make this goal even more specific?
Why is this goal so important to you?
What financial, physical, mental and/or emotional
benefits will you gain from reaching it?
b. Thinking of your long-term goals often
Once you have established a long-term goal, you need to
look at it on a regular basis. To do so you can:
Create a vision board and put it somewhere you’ll see
it often,
Write down your long-term goal on a piece of paper
and put it on your desk or somewhere you’ll be able to
see it daily, and/or
Read your long-term goal every day/week.
The more often you think about your long-term goals, the
better you’ll become at adopting a long-term vision.
c. Dedicating time to focus on the big picture
To ensure you stay focused on your long-term vision, I invite
you to carve out some time during your week to zoom out
and think in terms of the overall picture. For instance, you
could dedicate thirty-to-sixty minutes every Sunday to
assess your progress and ensure you’re heading in the right
direction. During this time, you can ask yourself the
following questions:
What am I satisfied with?
What do I want or need to improve?
What can I do differently to speed up my progress?
If I were to start the week all over again, what would I
do differently?
If I keep doing what I’ve done this week, will I achieve
my long-term goal? If not, what changes do I need to
make?
Is my current strategy the best one possible? If not,
how can I refine it to make it even better?
What are the very few things that generate most of
my results? Can I focus more on these things?
What are all the things that haven’t proven to be
effective so far? Can I get rid of some of them?
If I only work on one thing this week/month/year,
what would be best in terms of overall progress?
Having this kind of weekly strategic session will ensure you
spend time thinking of your future and avoid getting caught
up in the day-to-day chaos life can sometimes become.
Action step
Carve out time every week to focus on the big picture. To
help you do so, go through the list of questions above (you’ll
also find them in your action guide).
d. Learning to love the process
While we all want positive outcomes, obsessing over the
results isn’t the most effective strategy. Optimal results
don’t magically appear instantly. They are generated
through processes. Therefore, the key to becoming a longterm thinker is to focus on the process and learn to love it
and respect it.
We often buy into the myth that one day, when we finally
achieve our goals, we’ll live happily ever after. However,
that’s not the way the human brain works. We tend to be at
our happiest when we pursue worthy goals. This is why as
soon as we reach a goal, we feel the need to set a new and
even more exciting target. This means that most of your
happiness occurs during the process leading to the
achievement of your goals. As such, obsessing over the
results is missing the point. The joy you experience once you
reach any goal will only be short-lived. The process is the
real goal. The journey is all there is. For that reason,
enjoying the process is the best way to be happy while
making progress toward your most important goals.
Action step
Complete the sentence below using your action guide:
For me, focusing more on the process would mean …
e. Letting go of the fear of missing out
Many people are afraid of missing out on life. They live in
constant fear of missing that one party, opportunity or
person. For instance:
When they can’t attend a party, they become anxious.
What if something amazing happens and they aren’t
able to see it?
When they travel, they try to see as many things as
possible, packing their days with more visits than
they can handle. They spend hours researching for
fear of missing the one thing they should absolutely
see.
When they miss the opportunity to date someone they
really liked, they feel discouraged, wondering if they
will ever meet such a wonderful person again.
Ultimately, the fear of missing out is the manifestation of a
scarcity mindset. It results from a lack of trust in the world
and in its ability to provide more opportunities than you can
imagine. Perhaps, even more importantly, it is the
manifestation of a lack of trust in yourself and in your
capacity to create wonderful memories. In reality, there is no
shortage of enjoyable experiences. There is no limit to the
number of great memories you can generate.
When you fear missing out, you’ll tend to be more easily
distracted by new opportunities. This is why it’s important
you learn to control that fear better. People who fall for the
Shiny Object Syndrome are usually scared of missing out.
They believe there is a magic pill out there, and they can’t
stop themselves from searching for it.
Conversely, long-term thinkers understand this is an
inaccurate way of living. They know they need to craft a
sound strategy, refine it over time and stick to it for the long
term. They know that to succeed they will have to “miss out”
on a lot of things. This is actually what having a strategy is
all about: being able to say “no” to everything that isn’t part
of the overall strategy. Remember, if you don’t say “no” to
requests that eat into your valuable time, it means you don’t
have a real strategy.
Action step
Complete the exercises below using your action guide:
Write down the area(s) of your life in which you
experience fear of missing out.
Select one specific area or goal and write down all the
opportunities that actually exist out there. What are
your options? What could you do about it?
Take a moment to appreciate all the opportunities
available to you.
f. Reminding yourself to be patient
For most people, being a long-term thinker doesn’t come
naturally. To enhance your ability to think long term, you
must remind yourself of the importance of remaining
patient. Remember, you’re biased to want things
immediately, but you may need to hang fire a little.
People think I’m naturally patient. I’m not. In fact, I’m
extraordinarily impatient. I want things to happen and to
happen now. But at the same time, I deeply appreciate the
value of patience. I understand that any meaningful goal
requires months or years of work and that with enough
patience, I can achieve almost anything I want. This is why I
constantly remind myself to be patient, and I believe you
should, too.
Action step
Regularly remind yourself that you have time. To do this, you
can:
Create your own mantras such as “life is a marathon,
not a sprint”, or simply “I have time” or “be
patient”. Then think of them often, write them down
and/or display them on your desk or on your wall.
Watch Gary Vee’s videos, “Overnight Success” and
“People have forgotten the art of patience”).
Visualize everything you’ve already done in the past
few months/years and remind yourself of how much
more time you have available to achieve even greater
things.
6. Increasing the value you give to time
Time is one of the most valuable assets you have. Yet, you
may fail to use it as effectively as possible. If you’re serious
about achieving tangible results, you must learn to increase
the value you assign to your time. An effective way to do this
is to change how you set goals.
The way you set goals affects your perception of time. For
instance, if you don’t set goals, there will be no deadline to
hit and therefore, no sense of urgency. If you set yearly
goals, your deadlines may be months away which will
minimize your sense of urgency. Alternatively, if you set
thirty-day or ninety-day goals, you will instill a real sense of
urgency.
In their book, The 12-Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks
Than Others do in 12 Months, the authors, Brian P. Moran and
Michael Pennington, suggest we should change the way we
perceive time and consider the ninety-day period in front of
us as if it were an entire year. That is, when setting goals, we
should think in ninety-day periods and do away with annual
goals. Imagine if you needed to achieve your yearly goals in
ninety days? What would you do differently? Would you still
procrastinate? Would you still take it easy, thinking you had
plenty of time?
Thinking in ninety-day segments will make time much more
real to you. Your goals will feel more concrete. You’ll be able
to see the finish line from the very beginning which will
inspire you to take action right away. As a result, each and
every upcoming day will become much more important and
valuable.
So instead of thinking in terms of years, start thinking in
ninety-day periods and make sure you progress toward your
goals each day.
In Part III. Empowering your model of reality, we’ll see how to
break down your goals to boost your productivity.
a. Be impatient short term but patient long term
At first glance, the concept of striving for both patience and
urgency at the same time might appear paradoxical.
However, let me explain why I think this is not the case.
Whereas you must be patient over the long term knowing
that you will not always achieve tangible results as fast as
you’d like, you must be impatient in the short term by
having specific goals and firm deadlines that feel very real to
you. By doing this, you’ll be nudged to move toward your
goals every single day. By focusing on the process with a
sense of urgency and by remaining patient month after
month, you’ll eventually achieve your long-term goals.
So learn to be impatient in the short term, but patient over
the long term.
b. Busy vs. productive
To increase the value of time, you must replace “busy” work
with “productive” work. This begins by becoming more
aware of everything you do. Before you start any task, ask
yourself why you’re doing it and what exactly you’re trying
to achieve. As you do this, you might realize you don’t need
to complete the task at all.
As I said earlier, while building my online business, I used to
perform so many different work tasks. I posted daily on
Facebook, shot YouTube videos, uploaded images on
Pinterest, wrote guest posts, blogged, et cetera. But over
time and as I refined my model of reality, I started asking
myself which of these things, if any, were useful. One day I
stopped doing them, and I ended up reducing my workload
by half almost overnight. These days, I’m very strategic in
the way I work. Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed, I take
it as a sign I’m doing things I probably shouldn’t be
attempting. As a result, I stop and think, and I modify my
schedule accordingly.
You need to leverage the power of the 80/20 Principle.
Remember that, roughly speaking, twenty percent of what
you do will generate eighty percent of the results you obtain.
Also, understand there is an opportunity cost behind
everything you do. Whenever you choose to do one thing,
you say no to everything else you could be doing instead.
For instance, being French, I thought that maybe I should
translate some of my English-language books into French
myself. However, after due consideration, I realized it didn’t
make sense for the following reasons:
I’m not a good translator.
I don’t particularly enjoy doing translation work.
I could write a new book in English instead, which
could be a much more lucrative activity while
reaching a newer audience with additional content.
In short, aligning yourself with reality also means doing
what’s most important while eliminating the rest. Less is
often more.
7-step method to approach any new task
To make sure you’re as productive as possible, I encourage
you to follow the 7-step process outlined below before you
start any significant task.
Step 1. Prioritizing your task
Before you start working on a task, ask yourself:
If I could do only one thing today, which task would
have the most impact?
Is this task moving me closer to my main goal?
Do I really need to do it right now, or can I do it later?
Train yourself to think in terms of priorities and keep an eye
on the big picture.
Step 2. Assessing the validity of your task
To ensure the task is something you actually need to do, ask
yourself the following questions:
Do I really need to do this task?
Is right now the best time? What would happen if I
delay it for a week? A month? Forever?
Do I need to do this task, or am I doing it because it
makes me feel good? In short, am I working on this
task to escape from what I really should be doing?
There is nothing more unproductive than doing something
you didn’t need to do in the first place. Answering the above
questions can help you avoid making such a mistake.
Step 3. Clarifying what needs to be done
Before working on a task, be certain you know exactly what
is required. Therefore, before starting any task, ask yourself:
What exactly do I need to do here?
What am I trying to accomplish?
What does the finished product look like?
Be specific. By knowing exactly what the output needs to be,
you’ll be able to optimize your approach and tackle the task
more effectively.
Step 4. Determining whether you should be the person
doing it
You have strengths, but you also have weaknesses. Whenever
possible, try to delegate any task someone else can do better,
faster or more cheaply than you. Ask yourself the following
questions:
Is this task really worthy of my time?
Can someone else do it better than me? If so, can I ask
for help?
What would happen if I simply remove/postpone this
task?
Do I enjoy working on this task? Does it motivate me?
Little by little, you want to get into the habit of outsourcing
everything you’re not good at and focus only on the highvalue tasks at which you excel.
Step 5. Finding out the most effective way to tackle a task
Just taking a few minutes to work out the best way to
approach a task can save you so much time. Ask yourself the
following questions:
What tool(s) can I use, people can I ask or method can
I rely on to complete this task as efficiently and
effectively as possible?
What skill(s) could I learn or improve to help me
complete this task faster in the future?
Step 6. Batching the task with other similar tasks
Some jobs can be combined with other tasks that require the
same type of effort or preparation. For instance, many
YouTubers block one full day a week to record videos as
opposed to creating one video every day.
Ask yourself:
Can I batch this task with other similar tasks to boost
my productivity?
Step 7. Automating/systemizing your task
Finally, you want to find ways to automate or systemize your
task, especially if it’s a repetitive one. Ask yourself:
Can I create templates to reuse every time I work on
this or on similar tasks? For instance, you could
design templates for the specific emails,
presentations or documents you need to create over
and over.
Can I create a checklist? Checklists provide you with
specific steps to follow, making it less likely you will
become distracted or confused.
By following this 7-step approach you can boost your
productivity significantly. Even though it may take time for
you to internalize this process, once you do, it will become
almost automatic.
So far, we have discussed what you can do to align yourself
with reality and achieve better results. Now it’s time to see
how you can put your new model of reality to use in a way
that maximizes your odds of success long term. It’s time to
empower your model of reality.
Action step
Before starting any major or complex new task, go over the
7-step method to approach any task the right way. You’ll
also find it in your action guide.
PART III
EMPOWERING YOUR MODEL
OF REALITY
Now that you have a better idea of how to think accurately
and put in place effective processes, it’s time to make sure
your model of reality works for you in the real world.
We have all met people who seem to know everything about
the theory, but have little to no results to show for their
efforts. To avoid becoming one of these people, you must
ensure your actions are not only congruent with your new
model of reality, but they also reinforce it. To do so, you
must remove mental blocks and develop unshakeable selfconfidence so that you truly believe in your ability to achieve
your goals.
In this section, you’ll discover how to design an empowering
environment, adopt powerful beliefs, develop rock-solid
confidence and expand your field of possibilities. Doing so
will enable you to dramatically enhance the odds you will
achieve your goals in any area of your life.
So are you ready to empower your model of reality and
generate positive results?
Let’s get started.
DESIGN AN EMPOWERING ENVIRONMENT
Your environment has an enormous impact on the way you
feel and the actions you take. When your environment is
working against you, it is difficult to adopt a positive
mindset and take the actions required to achieve your goals.
For example, if people are casting doubts about your ability
to succeed, you’ll find it difficult to believe in or work toward
any dream.
Therefore, to design the reality you want, you must surround
yourself with positive people who will bring the best out of
you. You must also ensure your environment facilitates the
new behaviors and habits you want to adopt. You can change
your environment by:
Changing your peer group.
Changing your physical environment.
Optimizing your digital environment.
Let’s explore each of these options.
A. Changing your peer group
It’s said that we are the average of the five people we spend
the most time with. Who are these five people for you? If you
keep your current circle of friends, how likely are you to
achieve your biggest dreams?
You’ll tend to pick up the attitudes, habits and ways of
thinking of people around you. To a certain extent, we can
say that people you hang out with dictate how you think, feel
and act. For this reason, you’ll seldom—if ever—see
successful people hanging out with negative or unsuccessful
people any more than they absolutely have to.
Remember, whatever your goals or dreams, reaching them
won’t be easy. You’ll need all the support you can gather,
and this should start by surrounding yourself with the right
people.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following questions:
Who do I want to spend more time with?
Who do I want to spend less time with?
Which people have already achieved the goals I seek
to achieve?
Where can I find these positive and supportive
people?
1. How to protect yourself from negative people
As you develop a new model of reality to reach your goals,
you’ll encounter naysayers and other dream killers. Although
it is to be expected, it doesn’t mean you should give them
permission to influence your model of reality. These people
have their own vision of the world and that’s fine, but don’t
let them get into your head, drag you down and mess with
your dreams. Instead, strengthen your model of reality by
improving your peer group and building rock-solid
confidence in yourself and in your vision. We’ll see how to do
that in great detail in the next section, Developing
unshakeable confidence.
The truth is, in any interaction between you and another
person, two realities clash. If you lack confidence and
conviction, you’re more likely to be sucked into the other
person’s version of “reality”. This means you will allow their
model of reality (i.e., their assumptions) to influence yours.
For instance, if you lack confidence and they expect you to
fail, it may lead you to reconsider your goals. If they say your
art, book or product sucks, you may decide to give up. On the
other hand, if they believe in you and offer encouragement,
you’ll feel great about yourself and become more optimistic.
This is why you must learn to develop more confidence and
distance yourself from negative people. Over time and as you
gain confidence, you’ll be less affected by other people’s
opinions. Even so, there is no reason to hang out with
naysayers any longer than you absolutely have to, right?
Now let’s look at a few steps you can take to deal more
effectively with negative people. You can:
Ask for their support,
Reduce the time you spend with them, and/or
Refrain from sharing your goals with them.
a. Ask for their support
The first thing you can do is to ask them to support you. To
do so, tell them exactly what you’re trying to accomplish and
why it’s important to you. Then tell them why their help is
so important and how much it would mean for you to have
their full support.
In an ideal world, your friends and family will support you
and want the best for you, but that’s not always the way
things work. If after talking with unsupportive people in
your life, you notice no change in their attitude, try spending
less time with them.
b. Reduce the time you spend with them
It’s best not to spend all day around negative people. If you
notice someone is dragging you down, take specific
measures to distance yourself from that person. For
instance, you can decide to meet him or her only once a week
instead of two or three times a week. You can also decline
invitations more often. By doing so, this toxic relationship
may naturally die off over time.
c. Stop sharing your goals with them
Another step you can take to protect yourself from negative
people is to avoid sharing your goals with them. If you feel
they won’t support you, just keep your goals for yourself and
only share them with people who will encourage you.
Repeatedly being told that you will fail with your new
venture, never land your dream job or struggle to get your
book published is a real downer. Cherish your dreams and
only share them with people who deserve to know about
them—people who have your best interests at heart.
Now what about the people you live with? How should you
deal with them? Here are a few tips you can try.
Ask for their input/advice. The first thing you can try is to
ask for their input. Ask them what they would do if they were
in your shoes? For instance, how would they go about
changing careers? What would they do if they needed to
retire ten years early?
Further include them in your dream. If your goal or dream is
something you believe they can benefit from as well, sell
them on it. But instead of persuading them yourself, ask
them how their life would be better once you reach that goal.
In short, let them sell themselves on your goal. For instance,
let’s say you want to retire early by saving aggressively and
investing your money. Your partner might not be on board
with your plan at first. However, you could ask them to
imagine what they would be doing if they could retire earlier
than sixty-five. You could ask what would excite them most
about early retirement. Once they have clear and exciting
goals themselves, they may change their mind about your
idea and start helping you progress towards your goal.
Get early results. Another option is to generate tangible
results to show to your spouse, kids and/or parents. A couple
of years ago, I received an email from one of my readers who
loved my goal setting book and wanted his spouse to read it.
However, she wasn’t too keen on the idea. I suggested the
best thing he could do was to start achieving goals and as he
did so, she might feel inspired and pick up the book, too. It’s
easier to change others by becoming a role model than by
issuing instructions. Most people don’t like to be told what
to do.
If none of these suggestions work, you might have to pursue
your goals without their support. If they’re actively against
your goal, you have two options—either give up on your goal
or carry on regardless of the consequences it may have on
your relationship.
2. Surround yourself with people who will support you
One of the most effective ways to change how you think, feel
and act is to change the people you hang out with. You need
to be around positive and successful people who will push
you to become your best self and who demand more of you.
Here are a few things you can do to be around such positive
people:
Join groups of like-minded people.
Create your own event.
Look for a mentor.
Hire a coach.
a. Join groups of like-minded people
To strengthen your model of reality, you need to surround
yourself with people who are on the same path and, if
possible, ahead of you. For instance, if you’re an
entrepreneur, you might want to join a group of
entrepreneurs. If you are an aspiring writer, you might join
Facebook groups dedicated to writers or attend author
conferences.
Don’t hesitate to contact people who are on the same path as
you. The people who helped me the most are people I
contacted myself. So be proactive. Even a few encounters can
make a major difference in your life.
What group or groups could you join? Who could you
contact?
b. Create your own event
If you can’t find your tribe, why not create an event that will
attract people you want to be surrounded with? For instance,
last year I created a mastermind group with two other
authors. The group has allowed us to share tips and
strategies and has helped each of us achieve better results.
What about you? Who do you want to attract into your life
and what kind of event could you organize that would appeal
to them?
c. Look for a mentor
Having a mentor is one of the most effective ways to
skyrocket your success. A great mentor will:
Help you shift your mindset,
Tell you what to do (and not to do), saving you
months or years of work,
Ask you smart questions and offer guidance, and
Open their network to you (potentially).
However, finding the right mentor can be challenging. The
more successful a person is, the busier they are—and the
harder it will be to reach them.
There is no magic way to find a mentor, but there are a few
things you can do to help get you started. The most
important thing is to put yourself in the shoes of a potential
future mentor. You need to think as he or she thinks. For
instance, if I were to mentor someone, the main question I
would ask myself is how committed that potential mentee is.
I don’t want to waste my time with someone who will
disappear in a few months.
The bottom line is, you must be a good investment for your
mentor. Many successful people are happy to share their
knowledge and wisdom, but they want to make sure it will be
worth their time. Bear this in mind when you look for a
teacher. If you work hard on yourself first and aim to add
value to your mentor, maybe they will decide to work with
you.
Don’t worry if you can’t find a mentor. You can always have
virtual mentors by reading books, buying courses or
watching videos.
d. Hire a coach
Another way to find support and make tangible progress
toward your goals is to work with a coach. By investing your
hard-earned money in a coach, you’ll also have skin in the
game, making it more likely you’ll take action and generate
results.
Action step
Answer the questions below using your action guide:
What group or groups could you join? Who could you
contact?
Who do you want to attract into your life and what
kind of event could you organize that would appeal to
them?
Who would be the ideal mentor/coach for you?
What one thing could you do to spend more time with
people who will support your goal?
B. Change your physical environment
Is your physical environment inspiring you to perform at
your best, or is it holding you back?
When it comes to your productivity and your ability to
achieve tangible results, your physical environment plays an
important part. In this section, we’ll review a few things you
can do to optimize it.
1. Declutter your environment
If you feel stuck right now and lack motivation, it might be a
good idea to start decluttering your environment. For
instance, you can begin with your desk whether at work or at
home.
2. Make your goals visible
You should focus on your major goals as often as possible.
The more you think about your goals, the more your
subconscious will look for ways to make them a reality. And
remember, your subconscious works 24/7.
To think about your goals more often, put them somewhere
you can see them every day. For example, you could list them
and attach the list to your wall. Alternatively, you could write
them in a notebook and check it every day. You could also
create a vision board with pictures representing each of your
goals. The more often you look at your goals, the better.
Doing so will prevent you from getting distracted and ensure
you spend most of your time working on the things that
truly matter to you.
Successful people think about their goals regularly
throughout their day. They may even obsess over them. Why
don’t you?
3. Remove friction
How much junk food would you eat if you had an unlimited
supply on your desk every day? Now imagine if you had to go
to the supermarket every time you fancied some junk food.
You’d probably eat less of it, right?
You want to make your core tasks and desired behaviors as
easy as possible to perform each day. The less mental and
physical effort required to start working on a task or
adopting a certain behavior, the more likely you are to do it.
For example, if you want to write every morning, make sure
you can access the files you need easily. Personally, I like to
remove everything from my desk to avoid distractions. No
cellphone. No food. No documents. Nothing. I might also
turn off the Wi-Fi when necessary.
Check out the examples below:
If you want to go for a run in the morning, prepare
your running gear beforehand and make sure you can
access it easily.
If you have a creative job, you might want to keep a
pen and paper in every room in case you need to
capture a thought or idea.
If your tasks involve spending a lot of time on the
computer, make sure the files you need are wellorganized and create a system that allows you to save
any information that could be useful.
The bottom line is, designing an effective structure can
provide long-term support for your goal. The better you
optimize your environment, the easier it will be to maintain
your daily habits and avoid distractions and procrastination.
For these reasons, you should constantly strive to implement
things that have the potential to simplify your life, increase
your day-to-day focus, and support your goal.
Action step
Using your action guide, spend a few minutes answering the
following questions:
What one thing could you do to spend more time with
people who will support your goal? Example: I will
spend less time with my negative friends.
What one thing could you do to create a more positive
environment to motivate yourself to work on your
goal? Example: I will spend ten minutes every day
reading inspirational materials.
What one thing could you do to optimize your current
environment and make it easier to work on your goal?
Example: To avoid any distraction, I will remove
everything from my desk when I work.
C. Optimizing your digital environment
How often do you check your emails? How much time do you
spend on social media?
Distraction kills productivity. If you want to become highly
productive and achieve most of your goals in the long term,
you must eliminate as many distractions as possible to help
you focus. Aim for zero distraction.
When applicable, I encourage you to:
Turn off phone notifications.
Turn off Wi-Fi (unless you really need internet
access).
Remove any unnecessary items from your desk or
work environment.
Then get on with the work!
Here are some other things you might want to try:
Install software to remove your Facebook newsfeed
(e.g., the Chrome extension News Feed Eradicator for
Facebook).
Install browser extensions to remove
recommendations on YouTube (e.g., the Chrome
extension DF Tube).
Install apps that temporarily limit access to websites
such as Facebook, YouTube or any sites you visit more
often than you should (e.g., the app Freedom).
Emails can also be a huge source of distraction. I invite you
to unsubscribe from any newsletters not closely related to
your most important goals or projects. You can always resubscribe later.
The less time you spend on social media/emails, the more
proactive you’ll tend to become. Try it for yourself. Spend an
entire morning solely working. No emails. No social media.
Then see what happens to your productivity.
Action step
Using your action guide, optimize your digital environment:
Turn off phone notifications.
Check your emails as few times as possible (if
possible, limit your email access to once or twice per
day).
Turn off Wi-Fi or stay away from social media or any
other sources of online distraction (i.e., install
software to remove distractions as and when
necessary).
Unsubscribe from newsletters.
Now let’s see what you can do to start building unshakeable
confidence to help you act in a way that matches your new
model of reality.
DEVELOPING UNSHAKEABLE CONFIDENCE
Believing in something is one of the fundamental steps to
achieving anything. You will only take the necessary action
to achieve your goals when you truly believe success is
possible.
When you truly believe that you can design a career
you enjoy, you will do whatever it takes to get there.
When you truly believe you deserve to be in a great
relationship, you will do whatever is necessary to
attract the right person into your life.
When you truly believe you can retire early, you will
create a plan that will help you achieve that goal.
Fortunately, you don’t need to develop rock-solid beliefs
overnight. Like any other skill, the ability to believe comes
with practice. It doesn’t matter how low your confidence is
right now, you can and will believe in yourself more and
more over time as long as you practice consistently.
Next, we will discuss in detail how you can start developing
rock-solid confidence in yourself and in your vision. To do
so, we’ll go over the following:
Understanding belief.
Adopting key empowering beliefs.
Breaking down your goals and developing
consistency.
Conditioning your mind.
Cultivating self-compassion (or positive self-talk).
A. Understanding belief
Belief cannot be seen or touched, yet it will go a long way to
determine whether you will accomplish most of your dreams
or none of them, or whether you’ll feel good about yourself
or inadequate. In this sense, belief is an extremely powerful
concept.
Believing means being convinced that you can turn the
intangible—an idea or thought—into something tangible—
concrete results in the real world. Therefore, learning to
believe means trusting yourself enough and understanding
the process of creation well enough to turn your goals and
dreams into reality.
Few people have developed enough belief to achieve even a
fraction of their long-term goals. The good news is that
everyone can access the power of belief. Once you master the
art of belief, everything will change for you and for the
people around you. This is because believing not only helps
you reach your goals, but it inspires others to do the same. In
that sense, believing is like a gift. You can give that gift to
yourself or you can offer it to others. By believing in others
and giving them a few words of encouragement, you can
often help them grow far beyond anything they thought
possible. Of course, you can do the same for yourself, too.
Belief is the glue that makes everything possible. It gives you
the energy and courage to pursue your goals and to persevere
until you achieve the results you long for. When you combine
accurate thinking—by redefining your model of reality—
with unshakeable belief, the magic happens.
Now one of the most effective ways to develop self-belief is
through repetition.
Repetition is how your current beliefs were programmed into
your mind. For instance, one of my friends was told by her
music teacher that she would never amount to anything and
would likely end up as a prostitute, drug addict or alcoholic.
She was only ten when this psychological abuse started, and
it continued for years. Imagine the impact it had on her
emotional development.
You might not have been exposed to such horrific mental
harassment, but perhaps your parents told you to find a
stable job and ridiculed your dreams. Perhaps they taught
you money was evil. Please understand, most of the things
you’ve been told repeatedly have turned into beliefs that are
now solidly ingrained in your mind. These beliefs impact
your ongoing life decisions and often limit your potential.
1. Understanding the belief building process
I invite you to see the cultivation of self-belief as a process
that consists of the following four distinct phases:
1. Not possible. —> 2. Possible. —> 3. Probable. —> 4.
Inevitable.
Let’s examine each phase briefly.
Phase #1—Not possible
This is when you don’t believe that what you want to achieve
is possible for you. For instance, it may be when you’re
convinced that you can’t possibly land your ideal job, retire
earlier or lose weight. In this phase, you won’t even make
the attempt because you don’t believe you can achieve
something. Even if you do try, you’ll have little to no
conviction and won’t be able to obtain any tangible results.
Phase #2—Possible
This is when you ask yourself, “What if?” In this phase, you
start believing your goals or dreams may actually be
possible. You feel more excited about your goal and become
hopeful. Looking at what others have accomplished before,
you ask yourself, “Why not me?” You start thinking along
the following lines:
If others can, perhaps I can, too.
I wonder if I can do X, Y or Z.
Perhaps if I give it a shot, it could work for me.
Believing something is possible is the first step toward
achieving any of your goals. To boost self-belief, you can
(among other things):
Gather case studies of people who have already
achieved similar targets,
Surround yourself with people who have already
reached your goals,
Realize that if others can, you probably can, too,
Adopt new empowering beliefs that support your
goals, and
Take action in line with your new empowering beliefs.
Phase #3—Probable
This is when you become reasonably confident in your ability
to reach your goal. Feeling even more excited, you take more
and more action to move toward it. To reach this phase,
you’ll often need to accumulate small wins consistently over
a few weeks or months. You’ll also need to surround yourself
with positive people who believe in you and support your
goals.
Phase #4—Inevitable
This is when you’ve built enough confidence and have a good
enough track record to know—beyond doubt—that you will
reach your goal. This is the last phase and not an easy one to
reach. Although most people don’t reach this phase, it
doesn’t mean you won’t. Remember, belief is a skill anybody
can develop over time through consistent practice.
Once you become absolutely convinced you are going to
achieve the results you seek, self-doubts will disappear and
potential roadblocks won’t bother you anymore. As a result,
you’ll be able to focus most of your energy on achieving your
goal. With such a high level of certainty, you’ll also win over
many people around you. You might even feel like the
universe is conspiring to help you attain your goals.
These are the four phases you will go through as you
strengthen your self-belief. As you’ve discovered, it’s not a
matter of being born confident or being incredibly smart, it’s
a matter of following a process and sticking to it long term
until your beliefs change radically.
2. The meta-belief that rules all
One specific belief has the power to transform every aspect
of your life. This belief will lead you to make the changes
needed to design the life you want. Once you start
experimenting with it, you’ll begin to notice positive
changes.
This is the belief that everything happening to you is the
result of your own thinking and everything outside of you is
a projection of what’s inside you.
You might be skeptical. However, the point of this belief isn’t
to be one hundred percent accurate, it is to invite you to look
within yourself so that you can make as many positive
changes as necessary. This particular belief encourages you
to take complete responsibility for your current situation.
Furthermore, the more responsibility you assume over your
life, the more power you have to change it. As you take action
to improve your situation, you’ll receive feedback from
reality. This feedback will enable you to refine your model of
reality.
In other words, this meta-belief eliminates many of your
inaccurate assumptions and invites you to discover the truth
by yourself. As you change, you’ll often find that everything
starts changing for you.
So why not behave as though everything happening to you
and around you is the result of your thinking? You can then
adopt more empowering thoughts that will lead you to take
better actions and achieve better results.
3. Using your beliefs to distort reality
Beliefs have the power to “distort” reality. In other words,
they can help you influence the reality around you, making it
easier for you to achieve concrete results. They do so by:
Changing your perspective which leads you to take
new actions, and
Changing the way people interact with you.
First, your beliefs have a direct impact on your perspective
(i.e., how you see the world). Once you believe something to
be true, you’ll tend to look for information that validates
your belief. Furthermore, you’ll tend to act in ways
congruent to these same beliefs.
For instance, if you believe you can find your dream job, your
brain will start looking for any information that fits that
model of reality. You will come across articles featuring
people who have switched careers successfully. You will
encounter employees who love their jobs, and you will keep
seeking more information or evidence you can land your
ideal job.
Perhaps we can say that when you change your beliefs,
reality changes—or at least your reality changes. It’s as
though you were creating a parallel universe in which
another version of you is capable of designing a life in line
with your new beliefs.
Second, what you believe changes the way you interact with
people and influences your environment. The world isn’t
something that exists outside of you. You’re co-creating it
with other people. That is, the actions you take (or fail to
take) have a direct impact on your environment. This is why
belief is so powerful. When you believe strongly in what you
do and act accordingly, you’ll start to see that people around
you behave differently. People who didn’t support you
previously will start cheering for you and perhaps they’ll
even become your biggest fans. They may even start asking
for your advice!
As the famous coach, Tony Robbins, said, the most certain
person usually wins. This makes belief your superpower. To
achieve all your goals and dreams, you must develop the
ability to believe, day after day, week after week, month after
month. When you truly believe, you’ll realize everything will
start changing for you.
Unfortunately, many people struggle to believe in
themselves. As a result, they become easily influenced by
other people. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can
believe in ourselves. We have the power to develop such a
strong vision that nothing and nobody can ever stop us from
going after what we want.
B. Adopting key empowering beliefs
What you believe determines the actions you take and
therefore, the results you obtain. This is why you must have
empowering beliefs that serve you and help you succeed.
Now let’s review a few empowering beliefs that will make a
tremendous difference in your life once you internalize
them.
Belief #1—You can improve over the long term
Believing doesn’t imply you must be talented and already
have all the skills you need. To build confidence, you don’t
have to be the person you want to be—at least not yet.
True belief means knowing deep down that you can and will
improve in the long term. It means developing an inner trust
that you can figure things out, that you can achieve your
goals and that you do matter. Consequently, it requires you
to have faith in yourself and in your ability to grow. It
demands you trust yourself and take action to move in the
direction you think is right for you.
In her book, Mindset, Carol Dweck demonstrated that there
are mainly two types of people. People with a fixed mindset
and people with a growth mindset. People with fixed
mindsets don’t believe they can grow and make major
changes in their life. They perceive their abilities as set in
stone. On the other hand, people who have growth mindsets
believe they can learn and improve. They have the inner
belief that they can improve over the long term no matter
what.
To sum up, one of the key beliefs required to cultivate
confidence is the belief that you can figure things out and
that the ability to improve is absolutely inevitable in the long
term. This belief permeates everything you do and every
thought you have and will help you overcome many of your
future challenges.
Belief #2—If someone else can, you can
We all have a fairly similar brain. So if someone else can do
something, you can probably do it, too. This is one of the
core beliefs I’ve been relying on for the past few years. Thus,
avoid assuming others are smarter or better than you. With
enough practice, belief and confidence, if others can do
something, you can do it too.
Remember, if you refuse to believe that something is
possible for you it will never become your reality. You have
to believe something is possible for it to become possible. Of
course, this doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, but it does
mean that with enough practice and with a strong
willingness to learn and improve, you’ll likely get where you
want to be in the future.
Belief #3—If you can do it once, you can do it again
Sometimes to start believing in yourself, all you need to do is
something just one time. Imagine if you could do something
you thought impossible even just once. How would that
change your perspective? What new possibilities would it
open up to you?
The point is, you don’t need to be making millions with your
side hustle or to have tons of clients already lined up. For
now, all you need to do is make your first dollar or find your
first client. If you can do it once, you know you can make it
happen again. No need to doubt yourself, either. That would
be wasting your precious energy. So challenge yourself to do
the one thing you need to do just once. Then repeat the
process. If you can do it once, you can do it again.
Belief #4—Others will give up, therefore, you will succeed
Most people give up way too soon. Don’t be one of these
people. Stop giving up on your dreams so easily. When things
get tough, remember why you started in the first place. Did
you tell yourself, “I will give it a shot and give up when
everybody else is giving up?” Probably not. Otherwise, why
did you even bother starting in the first place? When you
can’t take it anymore, that’s exactly when you need to push
through. Keep going. Once you learn to stick to your goals in
the long term, you’ll be able to achieve almost anything you
desire. So stop worrying about the competition. Most people
are not your competitors. They will give up way before you
do.
Belief #5—Success is inevitable
What if you knew beyond any doubt that you would achieve
your goals? We spend an enormous amount of time and
energy wondering whether we’re going to make it. Inside us,
there is a constant battle between the part eager to go after
our goals and the part that believes we might fail. To start
getting rid of your self-doubts, I invite you to assume your
success is inevitable. I encourage you to see yourself as being
successful already and to realize that you’re resourceful
enough to figure things out. Yes, you will probably fail many
times along the way, but by pushing through and learning
from each setback, you’ll eventually reach your goals.
Bear in mind that developing unshakeable confidence isn’t
about adopting the belief you will not fail. It’s about knowing
that, no matter how many difficulties you face and no matter
how many times you’ll fail, you’ll eventually figure out a way
to get from where you are to where you want to be. Having
the inner belief that achieving your goal is just a matter of
time is absolutely essential to your long-term success.
In conclusion, assume success is inevitable in the long term.
Meanwhile, be willing to fail as many times as necessary in
the short term until you obtain the desired results.
To learn how to develop rock-solid confidence and make
your success inevitable in greater depth, refer to my book,
Success Is Inevitable: 17 Laws to Unlock Your Hidden Potential,
Skyrocket Your Confidence and Get What You Want from Life.
When the five beliefs outlined above become part of your
identity, your confidence will grow and you will become far
more perseverant. This, in turn, will dramatically increase
the chance you’ll achieve your long-term goals.
Action step
Print out the page with the five beliefs from your action
guide and read them on a regular basis. Think of them often.
If you identify other great beliefs you want to adopt, add
them to your repertoire.
C. Breaking down your goals and developing consistency
When it comes to developing rock-solid confidence, your
ability to set and achieve goals—and do it consistently—is
key. After all, if you never do what you promised to do, how
rotten are you going to feel about yourself?
Don’t worry. There is no need to reach huge goals right off
the bat. Repeatedly attaining small goals will help you build
the confidence required to achieve the bigger ones.
Setting goals made a major difference in my life. It didn’t
happen overnight, though. It took me a couple of years to get
used to setting and achieving goals. These days, I find it
easier to set realistic goals and ones I’ll actually achieve.
Five years ago, I wrote that, by April 18th, 2020 (my thirtyfifth birthday) I would have written twenty to twenty-five
books and would be making $5,000 per month. As I’m
writing this, it’s February 2020. I’m working on my
twentieth book (this one), and I have exceeded my income
target. As a side note, I actually threw away the list years ago
(sigh).
My point is, setting attainable goals works. But it’s a skill
that must be acquired through practice. If you want to
develop unshakeable confidence, do what you promise to do.
Write down your goals, read them regularly, and most
importantly, strive to achieve them one after the other.
To make it easy, break down your goals into smaller, more
manageable tasks. For instance, break down your five-year
vision into annual goals. Then further break down your
annual goals into quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.
Any goal, no matter how big it may be, can be broken down
into small daily tasks. And in the end, achieving these small
tasks every single day will lead to extraordinary and
powerful results. For example:
By reading ten pages a day, you will have read fifteen
to twenty books in one year (and 150-200 books in
ten years),
By writing 300 words per day, you’ll have written
three books like this one over a twelve-month period
(and 120 books over a forty-year career), and
By reaching out to one influencer per day, you’ll have
contacted 365 influencers over a year.
Small tasks do add up over time. So break down your major
goals into smaller tasks. This will prevent you from feeling
overwhelmed. Attacking a challenge this way, you’ll often be
surprised by how much you’ll achieve in the long term.
Now let’s see how you can break your goals down into
smaller, bite-sized chunks.
To learn how to become an unstoppable goal achiever in
ninety days or less, check my planner, The Ultimate Goal
Setting Planner.
How to break down your goals
If your goal seems too daunting or unrealistic, you should
probably break it down. You want to break any of them down
until you feel reasonably confident you will achieve them.
There are two ways to do this: you can reduce the scope of
your goals, or you can change the timeline. For instance,
reducing the scope would mean going for a weight loss goal
of ten pounds instead of twenty. Changing the timeline
would mean giving yourself an extra six months to reach
your weight loss goal of twenty pounds.
D. Conditioning your mind
We’ve mentioned before that the way you adopt new beliefs
is through repetition. In this section, we’ll go over a few
things you can do to implement new empowering beliefs and
condition your mind for success.
1. Using affirmations.
2. Changing your self-talk.
3. Practicing visualization.
1. Using affirmations
Whether you know it or not, you’re practicing affirmations
every day and you’ve been doing it for years. Through your
inner dialogue, you continuously affirm to yourself who (you
think) you are. By doing so, you reinforce your sense of
identity. Perhaps you affirm to yourself that you’re not good
enough, you don’t deserve to be happy, you won’t meet your
ideal partner or you will never make money doing what you
love. You may see yourself as lazy, shy or uninteresting. Now
is any of this really true? Well, it doesn’t matter because if
you think it is, this will most likely become your reality (i.e.,
the way you perceive yourself).
The good news is that you don’t need to tell yourself you’re
an incompetent and unworthy human being. You can choose
to see yourself the opposite way. In short, you can decide to
replace your current identity (or part of it) with a new one
that will support the kind of life you want to create more
effectively. And you can start doing so right now.
Affirmations are statements you repeat to yourself to
reprogram your mind and create a more empowering story
or identity. The same way you’ve been told the same
negative things over and over, you can tell yourself positive
and empowering things over and over again. As Muhammad
Ali said, “It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief.
And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to
happen.”
Now you might wonder, what kind of affirmations should
you tell yourself every day? The answer is, it depends on
what aspect of your life you want to change and what
disempowering beliefs you currently hold. In the next
section, we’ll see how you can identify your most liming
beliefs and replace them with more empowering ones using
tailored affirmations.
Identifying your limiting beliefs
Limiting beliefs are those beliefs you’ve accepted as true—
whether consciously or unconsciously—that limit your field
of possibilities.
The simplest and most effective way to identify your limiting
beliefs is to look at areas of your life you’re not satisfied with
and ask yourself why. Your answers to these questions are
likely to be limiting beliefs. More specifically, you can ask
yourself the following questions for each area of your life:
Why am I not where I want to be in this area? What’s holding
me back?
For example:
Why am I not where I want to be in my career? What’s
holding me back?
Why am I not where I want to be with my finances?
What’s holding me back?
Why am I not where I want to be in my relationships?
What’s holding me back?
For this exercise, I recommend you use your previous goal
and identify the limiting beliefs you hold regarding that
specific goal. Why haven’t you achieved it yet? What’s
standing in your way?
Once you have identified some of your limiting beliefs, turn
them into positive affirmations. Below are some examples of
ways you can turn limiting beliefs into positive affirmations:
Limiting belief: I don’t have enough time to work on
my side hustle.
Positive affirmation: I make the time to do whatever
I’m committed to.
Limiting belief: I don’t believe I can find a job I enjoy.
Positive affirmation: I am finding creative ways to
enjoy my job. Every day, I’m moving closer to
designing my ideal career.
Limiting belief: I’m not good enough.
Positive affirmation: I am good enough and I’m
moving closer to my goal every day.
Here are a few tips you can use to create your own
affirmations:
State your affirmation in the present tense.
Avoid using negatives and state your affirmation in
the positive form. For instance, say “I’m courageous”
rather than “I’m no longer afraid.”
Aim to change your physiological state. Engage your
body and experiment with different vocal tones. This
will add power to your affirmation.
Use the power of visualization. See yourself in
specific situations that relate to your affirmation,
then try to feel as though you already have what you
want. Engaging your emotions this way will make
your affirmation significantly more powerful (see also
the section, Practicing visualization).
Once you have your affirmations, spend a few minutes every
day repeating them and/or writing them down. Do your best
to engage all your emotions. The more emotional your
affirmations are, the more effective they will be.
You can repeat your affirmations first thing in the morning
or last thing at night. This is when your subconscious is at its
most receptive. You can also repeat your affirmations on
your way to work, in the shower or anywhere else you want.
Action step
Using your action guide, create your own affirmations.
2. Changing your self-talk
Another way to reprogram your mind is through positive
self-talk. Like most people, you might be overly harsh with
yourself, relying on self-criticism rather than words of
encouragement. Fortunately, you have the ability to change
the way you talk to yourself and adopt much more positive
self-talk. As you do so, your overall mood will improve, your
motivation will increase, and your overall confidence will
grow.
Now what is self-talk? In a nutshell, self-talk is your
internal dialogue. The way you talk to yourself shapes your
reality and determines how you feel and what you believe is
or isn’t possible.
The main difference between positive self-talk and
affirmations is that while affirmations tend to be simple
sentences such as, “I’m worthy of love” or “I love being
confident”, positive self-talk is more of a conversation with
yourself. In this conversation, each sentence aims to change
one or more of the limiting beliefs that prevent you from
achieving your goals. By addressing each one, you can make
positive changes in your life.
If we take money as an example, your limiting beliefs could
be:
Money is not important.
Money is the root of all evil.
I wish we could live in a world with no money.
To make more money I must take it from someone
else who needs it.
I need money to make money.
I need to know the right people to make money.
To make money, I must be dishonest.
I’m not worthy enough to charge more for my
products or services.
I can’t be spiritual and wealthy.
If I make money, people around me will resent me.
If I become wealthy, I’ll only attract people interested
in my money.
Money is scarce and there isn’t enough for everyone.
Making money is hard.
I’m not good with money.
Now here is what your self-talk regarding money could look
like.
“The more money I make, the more people I can help. Being
wealthy allows me to give more money to charity and invest in
projects I truly believe in. For me, money is a just spiritual tool I
can use to express my deepest convictions and do good in the
world. I strive to earn it, spend it and invest in ways that fall in
line with my core values and aspirations. Because I value myself
and my work, I’m happy to be well rewarded financially for the
products and services I offer. I also know I can always improve my
skills and create more value. This means I can always find ways to
make more money. And the more money I make, the more
freedom I have to pursue the things that matter to me. With all the
technologies and free sources of information available, making
money has never been easier than it is today.”
Now, this is just an example. It’s up to you to talk to yourself
in a way that feels natural and resonates with you. Of course,
your self-talk will vary based on the limiting beliefs you
want to overcome. Alternatively, you’ll find self-talk audio
tracks on YouTube. Feel free to listen to them as well.
Remember, beliefs are created through repetition as well as
through emotions. The more you repeat something to
yourself, and the more emotionally charged it is, the
stronger that belief will be and the deeper it will sink in. For
example, if you associate money with freedom and keep
repeating to yourself what a wonderful agent for freedom
money is and the deeper you feel it, the stronger that belief
will become.
Let’s return to your previous goal. Look at everything you
believe is holding you back in regards to that goal. Do you
have your list? Now let’s imagine you’re talking to a friend
that holds the same beliefs. Try to convince him that the
opposite is true.
Now it’s your turn to create your own self-talk and start
eliminating your restrictive beliefs.
Action step
Using your action guide, write down a few sentences you can
use as positive self-talk to overcome some of the limiting
beliefs you hold relating to your goal.
3. Practicing visualization
Your imagination is one of your most valuable assets. It’s
more powerful than willpower and bypasses logic. When
used effectively, it can help you achieve almost anything you
desire. Anything you visualize strongly enough and for long
enough will tend to become your reality. This is because as
you keep visualizing, you will feel compelled to take action to
close the gap between what you see in your mind and what
you want to manifest in reality. In addition, as you tell your
subconscious mind what you want to happen, you’ll find
yourself spotting new opportunities or meeting new people
who can help you on your journey. Therefore, to feed your
new model of reality, you must keep visualizing what you
want to see happen in the future until you firmly believe it
will become your reality.
Remember, we do not perceive reality as it actually is, but as
we think it is. Our version of reality is tainted by our biases,
limiting beliefs and life experiences. Now you can choose to
hold onto a whole bunch of limiting beliefs, or you can let go
of them and use your imagination to develop a new reality in
which you’re much more powerful, determined and
confident.
Below are a
visualization.
few
simple
steps
to
get
started
with
1) Relax
The more relaxed you are, the more effective visualization
will be. As you put yourself in a deep state of relaxation,
you’ll gain better access to your subconscious. As a result,
your subconscious will accept what you visualize more
readily without the mental noise and objections you often
get from your conscious mind. Also, remember that your
mind is at its most receptive first thing in the morning and
last thing at night. These are great times to practice
visualization.
2) Visualize what you want
Your imagination is limitless. Therefore, there is no situation
you cannot create in your mind. Whatever you decide to
visualize, try to make it as specific and clear as possible. An
effective way to do so is by creating a mental movie. Put
yourself inside the move and make it appear as if it were
happening right here, right now.
Think about it this way: when you think of past events, do
you remember specific memories or just fixed images? You
need to create mental movies similar to the memories you
would have if what you desire had already happened or was
actually happening. For example, if you want to travel the
world, don’t just list the name of the countries you want to
visit, see yourself walking the streets, visiting famous
monuments and eating at local restaurants. Be specific.
Where are you staying? What are you eating? Who are you
with?
Visualizing is not merely daydreaming. The “One day I will”
type of thinking seldom, if ever, materializes. This is nothing
more than wishful thinking. Conversely with visualization,
there is desire and commitment. It doesn’t mean you need to
be tense or stressed about it, though. Just relax and trust that
your desire and commitment will help you reach your goals.
3) Feel as though you’re already there
Emotions drive actions. When you feel good, you’re more
creative, more resourceful and more productive. When you
are in a positive frame of mind, you readily take the actions
you need to achieve your goals. Therefore, whenever you
visualize, engage as many of your emotions as possible. Feel
excited about your vision. More specifically, feel as if you are
already the person you want to be and you already have the
things you want. For instance, if you want to be confident,
see yourself being confident in a variety of situations. Create
a mental movie and revisit it over and over again. Feel
confident while you make a presentation at work. See
yourself relaxed as you attend a social event. Imagine people
around you being friendly and receptive.
Feelings are important because they allow you to shift your
beliefs quickly and profoundly. As your beliefs change, your
subconscious will try to align the reality around you with
your new reality. As a result, you’ll find yourself taking more
actions to close the gap between where you are and where
you believe you must be.
If you feel any resistance when you visualize, acknowledge
it, let it go and refocus on the object of your visualization.
4) Focus on what you want as often as possible
Here again, repetition is key. Spend time every day
visualizing the person you want to become. Step into your
vision first thing in the morning and see yourself as the
person you want to be. Keep visualizing this same thing
throughout the day. Then do the same at night before going
to bed. Keep feeling as though you’re already that person.
Assume that the qualities you seek to develop are already
inside you just waiting to be uncovered.
The repetition of an emotionalized vision will lead you to
take different actions. Over time, these new actions will
move you closer to the person you want to become.
These are the four simple steps to effective visualization.
The bottom line is this: you can tap into your imagination
24/7. Therefore, make sure you use it to create your ideal
life, not to revisit unhappy memories or worry about your
future. What you think about often and for long enough will
tend to become your reality—but only if you take action, of
course.
Action step
Spend a few minutes every morning visualizing yourself
moving toward your goal and accomplishing it. Additionally,
think about your goals throughout your day.
E. Cultivating self-compassion (or positive self-talk)
Developing the unshakeable confidence that you need to
achieve your goals isn’t simply about being confident all the
time. You may fall prey to self-doubt from time to time and
that’s okay. The power of belief arises when you’re able to
maintain a high level of belief in yourself and in your vision
over long periods. We all know people who are excited about
their new goals and are ready to take on the world. They may
seem completely determined, working hard on their goals
for days, weeks or even months. However, they soon start
doubting themselves when results fail to match their
expectations. As a result, they give up.
On the other hand, true belief lasts day after day, week after
week, month after month, year after year. You must develop
the ability to keep believing long term no matter what. Selfcompassion plays an important role in this regard. Having
enough self-compassion will help you maintain confidence.
At the same time, it will prevent you from feeling sad or
discouraged. In short, it will act as a safety net to your
emotional well-being, allowing you to persevere during
challenging times. As such, it is an integral part of the
confidence-building process required to achieve any of your
long-term goals.
1. Understanding self-compassion
The first step toward becoming more self-compassionate is
to understand a few simple truths that will help you replace
your model of reality with a more empowering and
compassionate one.
Truth #1—You’re doing the best you can with what you have
It’s easy to beat yourself up when you feel as though you’re
not living up to your true potential. The truth is, you’ll never
be able to unlock one hundred percent of your capabilities.
The reason is simple: while your potential is almost
unlimited, your time isn’t.
The first truth I want to share with you is this: you’re always
doing the best you can with what you have. For instance,
let’s say you’re procrastinating on a project. This isn’t a sign
you should be more productive nor is it an invitation to beat
yourself up. It’s simply a sign the current version of you is
procrastinating due to fear, lack of clarity or perhaps low
energy levels. In that very moment, procrastinating is the
best you can do. Of course as you develop, the You 2.0 will
become better at dealing with procrastination and other
issues.
The point is, you’re always doing the best you can with what
you have. So is everybody else. Therefore, when you feel the
urge to criticize yourself, remember that. Be kind to yourself.
It’s the best thing to do.
Truth #2—You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be
This leads us to the second truth: you’re exactly where
you’re supposed to be right now. Because if you weren’t, you
would be somewhere else. So do the best you can where you
are and encourage yourself along the way. By doing so, you’ll
end up in a much better place in the future.
Truth #3—You don’t need to be perfect in any way
Do you feel discouraged when you look at all the people who
are better, smarter, stronger or happier than you? Realize
that there will always be people who are doing better than
you in certain areas of life.
The real battle you have isn’t with other people, it’s with
yourself. Others have their own issues you know nothing
about. Let them deal with their own problems. Meanwhile,
refocus on yourself and on what you can do to improve your
situation.
Every human being has flaws. Fortunately, you don’t need to
be perfect to design a great life; you simply need to
acknowledge your strengths and nurture them. You have a
few abilities no other human being has. Why not focus on
these abilities and see what you can create with them?
The point is, you don’t need to be perfect to be successful.
You only need to identify your biggest strengths and express
them the best you can at your own pace while being kind to
yourself.
Truth #4—You’re not alone
Whatever challenges you’re going through right now, you’re
not alone. Other people have similar issues or worse.
Recognizing the fact that you’re not alone is part of the
process required to cultivate self-compassion. Whenever you
feel lonely or misunderstood, understand that many people
are going through similar challenges right now. You are not
alone.
Truth #5—You have time
We’ve already touched upon the importance of thinking long
term, but it’s worth repeating. You have time to grow. It’s
okay if things take more time than you hoped, and it’s often
to be expected. But it’s not a reason to lose confidence or
give up. Stick to whatever major goals you want to achieve.
Give yourself time and remain optimistic no matter what.
See failures as invitations to grow. And, most importantly,
always be kind to yourself.
2. Practicing self-compassion
Self-criticism is a habit as is self-compassion. You can learn
to respect and encourage yourself during challenging times.
You can become your best coach and most avid supporter.
There is nothing wrong or selfish in doing so. You deserve
every bit of it. Below are a couple of things you can do to
practice self-compassion:
Use self-compassion during challenging times.
Undertake a 7-day challenge.
a. Using self-compassion during challenging times
Self-compassion is one of the most useful tools available to
you during difficult times. Whether you failed an exam, were
rejected by your date or became sick, remember to be selfcompassionate.
Self-compassion is the best antidote against negative
emotions. It will prevent you from becoming miserable and
will protect you against sadness, self-criticism, shame or
guilt. It will help you persevere, turning you into bamboo
that never breaks, but always bounces back to its original,
upright position.
I started practicing self-compassion a few years ago.
Whenever I noticed I was being hard on myself, I would
change my self-talk. Instead of telling myself I was stupid, I
would tell myself that it’s okay to make mistakes, that I
would do better next time, that I tried my best or whatever
else was relevant to the situation.
Did it make me complacent?
No.
Did I slack off and become a couch potato?
No.
In fact, I’ve probably never been as productive in my life. My
point is, you don’t need to be hard on yourself to become a
top performer and achieve everything you desire. You don’t
need to rely on fear, shame or guilt. Neither do you need to
belittle yourself, hoping you’ll finally goad yourself into
doing the things you want to do. Trying to rule by fear shows
a lack of self-trust and a lack of understanding in the power
of self-love. So stop ruling yourself by fear. Instead, use
inspiration and self-compassion as your primary motivators.
Develop trust in yourself and start talking to yourself as you
would talk to your best friend or your loved one. Then see
how quickly things change in your life and for the better.
b. Undertaking a 7-day challenge
Here is a practical exercise you can do. For the next seven
days, refrain from criticizing yourself. Every time you talk to
yourself in a negative way, stop and replace your criticisms
with kind words such as, “you’re doing okay”, “you’ll do
better next time” or “you made a mistake, but it’s okay”.
If you want, you can also put a rubber band around your
wrist and snap it each time you notice you’re being harsh on
yourself. Criticizing yourself is a habit and, as with any other
habit, you can break it and replace it with a better one.
Action step
Using your action guide, complete the exercises below:
Undertake a 7-day self-compassion challenge.
Whenever you notice you start beating yourself up,
change your self-talk. Tell yourself you’re doing okay.
Encourage yourself. Be kind to yourself.
Ideally, the belief you will achieve your goals should be a 7 or
8 out of 10. If you’re new to goal setting, you might want to
aim for a 9 out of 10. Remember, in the short term, what
matters most is that you build the track record of success.
You must turn yourself into a person who actually achieves
his or her goals. Over time, this will boost your confidence
and help you generate momentum. Consistency matters far
more than intensity. Expert goal achievers aren’t necessarily
the hardest workers, but they are definitely the most
consistent.
To sum up, set small goals and then achieve them. Do what
you say you will do. This will enhance your self-confidence
and build your sense of self-trust and self-worth.
3. Setting daily goals
Achieving goals consistently is a wonderful way to build
confidence and generate momentum. But how do you do it?
Here is what you can do: set three small daily goals you know
you will achieve. To do so, after you wake up every morning,
take a piece of paper (or use a notebook or a computer) and
write down three tasks you want to complete that day. The
tasks should be easy enough so that you’re almost
guaranteed to finish them. Then complete them one hundred
percent. Repeat the process for at least thirty days in a row.
Doing this will allow you to build your confidence and boost
your self-esteem.
What we’re doing here is building a new identity, the
identity of someone who set goals and achieves them over
and over and who, whenever he or she says something,
means it. The more you set and achieve daily goals, the more
confident you’ll become and the bigger goals or projects
you’ll be able to tackle.
Here’s a word of caution: goal setting isn’t an exact science.
Occasionally you will fail to achieve some of your goals,
especially at the beginning. This is perfectly fine. Be kind to
yourself and keep going. Your goal-achieving skills will
improve over time.
If you want to learn how to set and achieve exciting goals,
refer to my book, Goal Setting: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving
Goals that Truly Excite You.
Action step
Complete the exercises below using your action guide:
Re-using the goal you’ve been working with, break it
down into yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.
For the next thirty days, set three simple daily tasks
and make sure you complete them.
EXPAND YOUR FIELD OF POSSIBILITIES
What you can and cannot do is largely determined by your
mindset. When you develop a powerful mindset, a whole new
world of opportunity opens up to you. Your thinking starts
shifting, your confidence grows and what you thought was
impossible becomes your new reality.
In this section, we’ll discover what you can do to expand
your field of opportunity and find yourself in a positive
emotional state that will enable you to tackle new challenges.
After all, having an accurate model of reality is useless
unless you’re able to take the action required to achieve your
goals.
To help you expand your field of possibilities we’ll cover the
following topics:
Generating luck.
Asking yourself empowering questions.
Taking consistent action.
Leveraging the power of gratitude.
Let’s get started.
A. Generating luck
I’m not a big believer in luck. I believe it is our responsibility
to do whatever it takes to “become lucky”. The truth is, in
most cases, the more action we take, the more likely we are
to generate our own “luck” at some point.
For instance, the way I approached my publishing business
was to release book after book consistently until one of my
books took off. Having analyzed other successful indie
others, I understood I would likely need to have quite a few
books out before I could expect any kind of traction.
Eventually, this is what happened. One book took off. Then
another one. And another one. In a sense, I got “lucky”.
In short, the best way to become “lucky” is to take massive
and continuous action until something works. Of course, as
we’ve discussed, your actions should be part of an effective
overall strategy.
Now does this mean you’re guaranteed to achieve the results
you want? No. Very few things, if any, are guaranteed in life
—except perhaps the fact you must pay taxes and will die
one day. But taking action increases your chance of success.
Here are some ways you can manufacture luck:
1. Refusing to believe in luck,
2. Repeatedly thinking about what you want,
3. Broadcasting your desires to the world,
4. Taking consistent action in line with a clearly defined
strategy, and
5. Learning as much as you can from the feedback you
receive from reality (based on your actions).
Let’s look at each of these briefly.
1. Refusing to believe in luck
People who refuse to see luck as the determining factor for
their long-term success gain immediate power over their
lives. They take one hundred percent responsibility, realizing
they can always try new things and refine their model of
reality. They understand that for things to change, they will
have to change. With this mindset, they tend to achieve
better results than most people.
Conversely, people who believe they need to be lucky to
become successful fail to realize how much power they have
to transform their lives. They think the game is rigged and
the odds are stacked against them. As a result, all they can
hope for is to get lucky. This is why they often play the
lottery or gamble, hoping to win big one day.
You must realize there is always something you can do to
improve your situation. There are always options. Every
passing second offers countless opportunities. Because you
can always think better thoughts and take different actions,
you can always change your future.
2. Repeatedly thinking about what you want
Another way to “manufacture” luck is to keep thinking
about what you want over and over again. By thinking of
what you want every day, you tell your subconscious to look
for ways to make your goal a reality. As a result, your
subconscious will work 24/7 to help you reach your goal.
Cool, isn’t it?
So keep thinking about what you want. Visualize your future
vividly and feel the emotions you will experience once you
reach your goal.
3. Broadcasting your desires to the world
To receive help, you must let people know exactly what
you’re trying to accomplish. Most people would be willing to
help you provided they knew how. The more specific you are,
the more people will be in the position to give you sound
advice or introduce you to someone who will.
4. Taking consistent action in line with a clearly defined
strategy
Another way to generate luck is to take more action in the
real world. Now the point is not to take random actions or
fall for short-term tricks or gimmicks, hoping you’ll achieve
some success. The idea is to take actions that are aligned
with your strategy. The more of these actions you take, the
more likely you are to get lucky.
5. Learning as much as you can from the feedback you
receive from reality
The more action you take, the more feedback you will receive
from reality. By learning from feedback and adjusting your
actions accordingly, you will create a better model of reality
which will involve higher quality assumptions. Armed with
sound assumptions, you’ll make better decisions and achieve
superior results. In short, we can sum up the process as
follows:
More action. —> More feedback. —> Better assumptions. —
> Better actions. —> Better results.
Always make sure you are continuously learning from your
mistakes. As you do so, you’ll achieve much better results in
the long term.
Action step
Using your action guide, complete the corresponding
exercises to start generating more luck.
B. Asking yourself empowering questions
This is a great way to guide your thinking and invite smart
answers that inspire effective actions. Now let’s see what the
different types of empowering questions are.
1. “How” questions
I love “how” questions because they invite you to search for
solutions. Instead of telling yourself your biggest goals are
impossible, it is far more empowering to look at your goals
and ask yourself how you can achieve them. As you
brainstorm ways to reach your goals, you’ll come up with
many great ideas and will feel inspired to take action and
press forward. Whenever you find yourself thinking “I can’t
do this”, immediately erase that thought and ask yourself,
“How can I do this?”
I can’t make a living doing what I love. —> How can I
make a living doing what I love?
I can’t retire before I’m sixty-five. —> How can I
retire before I’m sixty-five?
Now that I have kids, I can’t travel as much as I’d like
to. —> How I can I travel with kids?
Thinking you can’t do something is never a good idea. For
sure, there are certain things you genuinely can’t do, but
whenever you find yourself thinking you can’t do something,
ask yourself the question “How can I?” instead. Then see
what answers you come up with.
2. “What if” questions
“What if” questions are great because they leverage the
power of your imagination, one of the most powerful tools in
your arsenal. They also remove some pressure from your
shoulders since you don’t need to believe you can do
something (yet). More specifically, the questions I have in
mind here are “What if I can” questions. Below are some
examples:
What if I can make a living doing what I love?
What if I can retire at forty-five?
What if I can travel extensively with my kids?
Remember, we are the only species on earth that can
imagine a better future and make it a reality by forming a
plan and acting on it consistently. It’s our superpower. So
what if you could design your ideal life in the coming years?
What if you could have (almost) everything you want?
By using “What if” questions you’ll open yourself up to new
opportunities. And as you keep taking action repeatedly,
you’ll be able to create a more empowering model of reality
that will lead to better results. So keep asking yourself,
“What if”.
Action step
Write down the answer to the questions below using your
action guide:
How can I achieve my goal? What can I do to help me
reach it?
What if I could achieve my goal? What if it was
possible?
C. Taking consistent action
To develop the beliefs necessary to reach your goals, you
must receive feedback from reality. And the best way to do
this is by taking consistent action.
1. The benefits of taking action
Taking action comes with several benefits.
First, it allows you to identify what works and what doesn’t.
There may be things you believe could be effective, but don’t
actually work. In short, taking action is a great way to test
your assumptions.
Second, taking consistent action allows you to shatter your
beliefs regarding what is and isn’t possible for you. For
instance, you might believe you could never give a speech in
front of a large audience, write a book or run a marathon.
However, as you begin to take action, you may realize it’s
actually possible. And the more you accumulate small wins,
the more your confidence will grow and the more action
you’ll be able to take.
Third, taking action enables you to refine your model of
reality even further. For example, if you take consistent
action for months but fail to see positive results, you might
start questioning what you’re doing. Perhaps you’re doing
the wrong thing, or not taking enough action. Such
questioning will lead you to adjust your actions until you
begin to notice tangible results. Remember, we’re living in a
world ruled by cause and effect. Certain actions are likely to
generate the results you’re looking for while others aren’t. It
doesn’t matter how much you say you want to help people,
how good a person you are or how hard you work. What
matters are the outcomes. The real questions you must
answer are:
How accurate is my model of reality?
How effective is my current blueprint?
Am I truly taking all the necessary actions to reach
my goal?
Maybe you believe you should be a motivational speaker
because you care so much about others. Or maybe you think
you deserve to be a professional singer because you’ve been
singing every day for years. However, the only thing that
matters in the end is how accurate your model of reality is,
how closely it aligns with the world out there, and how well
you’re acting on it.
The bottom line is, for whatever goal you pursue, you need
to run an audit and be radically honest with yourself. Many
people delude themselves and become bitter when they fail
to reach their goals. Don’t become one of those people.
Instead, do whatever it takes to achieve your goals or go do
something else which would be fine, too.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following questions:
How well is my current approach working for me?
Am I really taking enough action to reach my goal?
What would taking massive action mean to me?
2. Doubling down on what works
As you repeatedly take action and test your assumptions,
you’ll discover that a couple of things you do work very well.
Perhaps your audience loves one of your products. Perhaps
one of your services is generating more money than all the
others combined. If so, start focusing more of your time and
resources on activities that already deliver results.
Now you might find it counterintuitive to neglect products or
services you spent so much time creating. You might think
you should work on increasing the sales of your worstselling products or services. However, this is often a mistake.
Boosting the sales of an already popular product is usually
far easier than trying to get an unpopular one to sell. In the
former case, the ball is already rolling and you just need to
give it an extra push.
To give you an example, I chose to optimize the sales of my
best-selling book while “giving up” on my non-performing
books. To increase sales, I tested different pricing, optimized
the book description, and ran tons of ads. I also started
translating the books into French, German and Spanish with
the assumption it might sell well in these countries, too.
Finally, I created a whole series around the book
encouraging new readers to go back and read the first book
in the series. By doing so, I was able to increase sales
significantly.
The point is, keep testing your assumptions until you find
something that works. When you do, focus most of your
effort on scaling that thing up. Yes, it might feel
counterintuitive. Yes, you might feel as though you’re
missing out on other opportunities. But as we’ve seen before,
you have to miss out on many things to be successful. That’s
just to be expected.
Action step
Using your action guide, answer the following questions:
What if anything is bringing me the best results?
What could I do to double down on that success?
D. Leveraging the power of gratitude
I believe gratitude is one of the most powerful forces on
earth. As you develop more gratitude, you’ll find that all
sorts of things will start changing in your life. Cultivating
gratitude doesn’t just allow you to develop a deeper sense of
appreciation, it also changes how you see the world and the
action you take as a result of that transformation.
When you’re able to experience gratitude for everything you
have in life, you feel more inspired and have more energy to
put toward the achievement of your goals and dreams. You
feel a renewed sense of possibility, and new opportunities
start appearing. As such, developing gratitude is a wonderful
way to supercharge your model of reality.
When you’re happy with the things you already have, the
universe often gives you more—or so it seems. In short, the
more you focus on what you have, the more likely you are to
get what you want.
So what are you grateful for in your life?
1. Understanding gratitude
Before we see how to cultivate gratitude, let’s consider a few
limiting beliefs that may prevent you from experiencing
more of it.
Belief #1—There is a limited supply of …
Have you ever thought you will never be able to make your
money back, find a partner as good as your previous one or
be happy again?
This type of thinking is based on the belief there is a limited
supply of things, people or experiences available to you. But
is this true?
Sure, there may be important events you might not want to
miss, such as weddings and birthdays. However, there is no
shortage of amazing events or opportunities available to you
in the future. You can always create wonderful memories,
can’t you? For instance, missing out on an opportunity to
make money isn’t an issue. There will be more opportunities
in the future. And the better you train yourself to spot those
opportunities, the more you’ll find. There are also many
people out there who could be suitable partners for you.
Breaking up with someone you love by no means indicates
you’ll never meet another suitable partner in the future.
The bottom line is, stop being afraid of missing out. Seize
opportunities whenever you can but, remember there is and
will always be an abundance of opportunities out there.
Belief #2—I’m entitled to a great life
Nowadays, many people take everything they have for
granted. However, the truth is, you aren’t entitled to
anything. The universe doesn’t owe you a single thing.
Everything you have is temporary and borrowed. Eventually
it will have to be returned.
Having an attitude of gratitude requires you to realize how
blessed you are to have access to all the comforts modern life
has to offer. Many of the benefits you take for granted were
things previous generations fought for, whether it be paid
holidays, healthcare or the right to vote.
Everything you have is a gift. Make sure you appreciate it
fully. Spending time focusing on all the things you already
have will help you feel more grateful and develop a deeper
sense of abundance.
Belief #3—I need more …
While there is nothing wrong with wanting more, it can turn
into a never-ending pursuit that leaves you deeply
unsatisfied—unless you develop gratitude. You don’t
necessarily need more in life. Often, what you need is to
appreciate more of what you already have. It is:
Appreciating your money and what it pays for instead
of being obsessed with becoming more wealthy,
Nurturing your current relationships with your family
and friends rather than trying to make more friends,
and
Counting your blessings instead of counting your
misfortunes.
So if you find yourself thinking “I need more *fill in the
blank*”, question this assumption. Do you really need more,
or do you need to appreciate what you have more?
2. Practicing gratitude
Gratitude is a skill and as with any other skill it requires
consistent practice. In his book, Unlock Gratitude, my friend,
Mike Pettigrew, talks about his “Crazy Gratitude
Experiment”. He was going through a difficult period in his
life. After having trusted the wrong person and moving into
the wrong type of business, he found himself penniless,
unable to feed his wife and his new baby boy. It was one of
the most frightening experiences of his entire life as he
recalls. That’s when he decided to try his crazy gratitude
experiment inspired by a book he read.
“Amazingly, by doing my crazy gratitude experiment every thirty
minutes of the day, things started to change within only a few
days. This was wonderful to see and a great encouragement.
Everything started to change as soon as I created this experiment
and really tested it. After all, I’d almost nothing else to lose since
we were already broke. So, I invented this experiment and tested
it and the results were truly incredible.”
Of course, he still had to work hard to change his financial
situation. But practicing gratitude allowed him to start
thinking more positively, and this began to impact his
feelings and actions.
To start experiencing the benefits of gratitude, I recommend
you spend a few minutes to practice gratitude every day. By
doing so over time, you will find it easier to feel grateful
even when things don’t go the way you want.
Below are a few exercises you can choose from.
a. Writing down things you’re grateful for. Take a pen and a
sheet of paper, or even better, a dedicated notebook, and
write down at least three things for which you are hugely
grateful. This will help you focus on the positive side of
things.
b. Thanking people who crossed your path. Close your eyes
and think of people you’ve met. As you picture them one
after the other, thank them while acknowledging at least one
good thing they did for you. If you happen to picture people
you don’t like, thank them anyway and still look for one
good thing they did for you. It could be making you stronger
or teaching you a specific lesson. Don’t try to control your
thoughts; simply let the faces of people you know come to
your mind. Release any resentment you feel or have felt for
them.
c. Focusing on one object and appreciating its existence.
Select one item in your room and think of the amount
of work and the number of people involved in the
process of creating it and delivering it to you. For
instance, if you select a chair, think of all the work
necessary to create it. Someone had to design it,
others had to source the raw materials, and others
had to assemble it. Truck drivers had to deliver it to
the store. The store employees had to display it and
promote it. You or someone else had to collect it. The
car you drive also had to be built by other people, and
so on.
Think of how you benefit from the chair. Remember a
time you were so tired you couldn’t wait to sit. Didn’t
it feel great when you could finally collapse into it?
Thanks to the chair you can not only sit, but you can
also use your computer, write, read, drink coffee or
have a pleasant conversation with your friends.
d. Listening to gratitude songs/guided meditation. Listen to
gratitude meditation. To find the right song or meditation
for you, search “gratitude meditation” on YouTube.
Action step
Practice one of the exercises below for at least fourteen days:
Write down things you’re grateful for.
Thank people who crossed your path.
Focus on one object and appreciate its existence.
Listen to gratitude songs/guided meditation.
CONCLUSION
I would like to congratulate you on reading this book until
the end. I hope reading it has helped you develop a better
understanding of the way reality works. I also hope that
you’ve started working on specific ways to develop a more
accurate vision of reality. Remember, the more accurate your
vision of reality is, the better results you’ll tend to achieve
when acting on your developed long-term strategy—
whether it is related to your career, relationships, finances or
health.
Don’t deceive yourself. Don’t say you want to achieve all
these wonderful things while acting in a way that is
completely incongruent in your daily life. Take massive,
concerted and positive action. Challenge yourself. Try again
and again and listen to the feedback that reality gives you.
This is how you’ll be able to refine your model of reality little
by little.
Then work on empowering your model of reality. Create an
empowering environment that supports your dreams. Hang
out with positive people who will challenge you to become
better and aim higher. Develop rock-solid confidence that
will impact your own actions and the way people around you
behave. In the long term, what you truly believe in will tend
to become your reality. So never stop believing and keep
doing the work every day.
The person who has the most accurate model of reality and
acts accordingly will win. Be that person and wonderful
things will happen to you in the near future.
I wish you all the best in all your endeavors.
Warm regards,
Thibaut
Master Your Life With The Mastery Series
This book is the fifth book in the “Mastery Series”. You can
check out the other books in the series by clicking the link
below
mybook.to/Master_Emotions
To read a preview of the first book in the series, Master Your
Emotions, turn the page.
MASTER YOUR EMOTIONS (PREVIEW)
The mind in its own place, and in itself can make a
heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.
— John Milton, poet.
We all experience a wild range of emotions throughout our
lives. I had to admit, while writing this book, I experienced
highs and lows myself. At first, I was filled with excitement
and thrilled at the idea of providing people with a guide to
help them understand their emotions. I imagined how
readers’ lives would improve as they learned to control their
emotions. My motivation was high and I couldn’t help but
imagine how great the book would be.
Or so I thought.
After the initial excitement, the time came to sit down to
write the actual book, and that’s when the excitement wore
off pretty quickly. Ideas that looked great in my mind
suddenly felt dull. My writing seemed boring, and I felt as
though I had nothing substantive or valuable to contribute.
Sitting at my desk and writing became more challenging
each day. I started losing confidence. Who was I to write a
book about emotions if I couldn’t even master my own
emotions? How ironic! I considered giving up. There are
already plenty of books on the topic, so why add one more?
At the same time, I realized this book was a perfect
opportunity to work on my own emotional issues. And who
doesn’t suffer from negative emotions from time to time?
We all have highs and lows, don’t we? The key is what we do
with our lows. Are we using our emotions to grow? Are we
learning something from them? Or are we beating ourselves
up over them?
So, let’s talk about your emotions now. Let me start by asking
you this:
How do you feel right now?
Knowing how you feel is the first step toward taking control
of your emotions. You may have spent so much time
internalizing you’ve lost touch with your emotions. Perhaps
you answered as follows: “I feel this book could be useful,”
or “I really feel I could learn something from this book.”
However, none of these answers reflect how you feel. You
don’t ‘feel like this,’ or ‘feel like that,’ you simply ‘feel.’ You
don’t ‘feel like’ this book could be useful, you ‘think’ this
book could be useful, and that generates an emotion which
makes you ‘feel’ excited about reading it. Feelings manifest
as physical sensations in your body, not as an idea in your
mind. Perhaps, the reason the word ‘feel’ is so often
overused or misused is because we don’t want to talk about
our emotions.
So, how do you feel now?
Why is it important to talk about emotions?
How you feel determines the quality of your life. Your
emotions can make your life miserable or truly magical.
That’s why they are among the most important things to
focus on. Your emotions color all your experiences. When
you feel good, everything seems, feels, or tastes better. You
also think better thoughts. Your energy levels are higher and
possibilities seem limitless. Conversely, when you feel
depressed, everything seems dull. You have little energy and
you become unmotivated. You feel stuck in a place (mentally
and physically) you don’t want to be, and the future looks
gloomy.
Your emotions can also act as a powerful guide. They can tell
you something is wrong and allow you to make changes in
your life. As such, they may be among the most powerful
personal growth tools you have.
Sadly, neither your teachers nor your parents taught you
how emotions work or how to control them. I find it ironic
that just about anything comes with a how-to manual, while
your mind doesn’t. You’ve never received an instruction
manual to teach you how your mind works and how to use it
to better manage your emotions, have you? I haven’t. In fact,
until now, I doubt one even existed.
What you’ll learn in this book
This book is the how-to manual your parents should have
given you at birth. It’s the instruction manual you should
have received at school. In it, I’ll share everything you need
to know about emotions so you can overcome your fears and
limitations and become the type of person you really want to
be.
You’ll learn what emotions are, how they are formed, and
how you can use them for your personal growth. You’ll also
learn how to deal with negative emotions and condition your
mind to create more positive emotions.
It is my sincere hope and expectation that, by the end of this
book, you will have a clear understanding of what emotions
are and will have all the tools you need to start taking control
of them.
More specifically, this book will help you:
Understand what emotions are and how they impact
your life
Identify negative emotions that control your life and
learn to overcome them
Change your story to take better control over your life
and create a more compelling future, and
Reprogram your mind to experience more positive
emotions.
Here is a more detailed summary of what you’ll learn in this
book:
In Part I, we’ll discuss what emotions are. You’ll learn why
you are wired to focus on negativity and what you can do to
counter this effect. You’ll also discover how your beliefs
impinge upon your emotions. Finally, you’ll learn how
negative emotions work and why they are so tricky.
In Part II, we’ll go over the things that directly impact your
emotions. You’ll understand the roles your body, your
thoughts, your words, or your sleep, play in your life and
how you can use them to change your emotions.
In Part III, you’ll learn how emotions are formed. You’ll also
learn how to condition your mind to experience more
positive emotions.
And finally, in Part IV, we’ll discuss how to use your
emotions as a tool for personal growth. You’ll learn why you
experience emotions such as fear or depression and how they
work. You’ll then discover how to use them to grow.
I. What emotions are
Have you ever wondered what emotions are and what
purpose they serve?
In this section, we’ll discuss how your survival mechanism
affects your emotions. Then we’ll explain what the ‘ego’ is
and how it impacts your emotions. Finally, we’ll discover the
mechanism behind emotions and learn why negative
emotions can be so hard to deal with.
1. How your survival mechanism affects your emotions
Why people have a bias towards negativity
Your brain is designed for survival, which explains why
you’re able to read this book at this very moment. When you
think about it, the probability of you being born was
extremely low. For this miracle to happen, all the
generations before you had to survive long enough to
procreate. In their quest for survival and procreation, they
must have faced death hundreds or perhaps thousands of
times.
Fortunately, unlike your ancestors, you’re (probably) not
facing death every day. In fact, in many parts of the world,
life has never been safer. Yet, your survival mechanism
hasn’t changed much. Your brain still scans your
environment looking for potential threats.
In many ways, some parts of your brain have become
obsolete. While you may not be seconds away from being
eaten by a predator, your brain still gives significantly more
weight to negative events than to positive ones.
Fear of rejection is one example of a bias toward negativity.
In the past, being rejected from your tribe would reduce your
chances of survival significantly. Therefore, you learned to
look for any sign of rejection, and this became hardwired in
your brain.
Nowadays, being rejected often carries little or no
consequence to your long-term survival. You could be hated
by the entire world and still have a job, a roof and plenty of
food on the table, yet, your brain is still programmed to
perceive rejection as a threat to your survival.
This is why rejection can be so painful. While you know most
rejections are no big deal, you nevertheless feel the
emotional pain. If you listen to your mind, you may even
create a whole drama around it. You may believe you aren’t
worthy of love and dwell on a rejection for days or weeks.
Worse still, you may become depressed as a result of this
rejection.
In fact, one single criticism can often outweigh hundreds of
positive ones. That’s why, an author with fifty 5-star
reviews, is likely to feel terrible when they receive a single 1star review. While the author understands the 1-star review
isn’t a threat to her survival, her authorial brain doesn’t. It
likely interprets the negative review as a threat to her ego
which triggers an emotional reaction.
The fear of rejection can also lead you to over-dramatize
events. If your boss criticized you at work, your brain may
see the event as a threat and you now think, “What if I’m
fired? What if I can’t find a job quickly enough and my wife
leaves me? What about my kids? What if I can’t see them
again?”
While you are fortunate to have such an effective survival
mechanism, it is also your responsibility to separate real
threats from imaginary ones. If you don’t, you’ll experience
unnecessary pain and worry that will negatively impact the
quality of your life. To overcome this bias towards negativity,
you must reprogram your mind. One of a human being’s
greatest powers is our ability to use our thoughts to shape
our reality and interpret events in a more empowering way.
This book will teach you how to do this.
Why your brain’s job isn’t to make you happy
Your brain’s primary job is not to make you happy, but to
ensure your survival. Thus, if you want to be happy, you
must take control of your emotions rather than hoping you’ll
be happy because it’s your natural state. In the following
section, we’ll discuss what happiness is and how it works.
How dopamine can mess with your happiness
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter which, among other
functions, plays a major role in rewarding certain behaviors.
When dopamine is released into specific areas of your brain
—the pleasure centers—you get a high. This is what happens
during exercise, when you gamble, have sex, or eat great
food.
One of the roles of dopamine is to ensure you look for food so
you don't die of starvation, and you search for a mate so you
can reproduce. Without dopamine, our species would likely
be extinct by now. It’s a pretty good thing, right?
Well, yes and no. In today’s world, this reward system is, in
many cases, obsolete. While in the past, dopamine was
linked to our survival instinct, The release of dopamine can
now be generated artificially. A great example of this effect is
social media, which uses psychology to suck as much time as
possible out of your life. Have you noticed all these
notifications that pop up constantly? They’re used to trigger
a release of dopamine so you stay connected, and the longer
you stay connected, the more money the services make.
Watching pornography or gambling also leads to a release of
dopamine which can make these activities highly addictive.
Fortunately, we don’t need to act each time our brain
releases dopamine. For instance, we don’t need to constantly
check our Facebook newsfeeds just because it gives us a
pleasurable shot of dopamine.
Today’s society is selling a version of happiness that can
make us unhappy. We’ve become addicted to dopamine
largely because of marketers who have found effective ways
to exploit our brains. We receive multiple shots of dopamine
throughout the day and we love it. But is that the same thing
as happiness?
Worse than that, dopamine can create real addictions with
severe consequences on our health. Research conducted at
Tulane University showed that, when given permission to
self-stimulate their pleasure center, participants did it an
average of forty times per minute. They chose the
stimulation of their pleasure center over food, even refusing
to eat when hungry!
Korean, Lee Seung Seop is an extreme case of this syndrome.
In 2005, Mr Seop died after playing a video game for fiftyeight hours straight with very little food or water, and no
sleep. The subsequent investigation concluded the cause of
death was heart failure induced by exhaustion and
dehydration. He was only twenty-eight years old.
To take control of your emotions, it is essential you
understand the role dopamine plays and how it affects your
happiness. Are you addicted to your phone? Are you glued to
your TV? Or maybe you spend too much time playing video
games. Most of us are addicted to something. For some
people it’s obvious, but for others, it’s more subtle. For
instance, you could be addicted to thinking. To better control
your emotions, it is important to shed the light on your
addictions as they can rob you of your happiness.
The ‘one day I will’ myth
Do you believe that one day you will achieve your dream and
finally be happy? This is unlikely to happen. You may (and I
hope you will) achieve your dream, but you won’t live
‘happily ever after.’ This is just another trick your mind
plays on you.
Your mind quickly acclimates to new situations, which is
probably the result of evolution and our need to adapt
continually in order to survive and reproduce. This is also
probably why the new car or house you want will only make
you happy for a while. Once the initial excitement wears off,
you’ll move on to crave the next exciting thing. This
phenomenon is known as ‘hedonic adaptation.’
How hedonic adaptation works
Let me share an interesting study that will likely change the
way you see happiness. This study, which was conducted on
lottery winners and paraplegics, was extremely eye-opening
for me. Conducted in 1978, the investigation evaluated how
winning the lottery or becoming a paraplegic influence
happiness:
The study found that one year after the event, both groups
were just as happy as they were beforehand. Yes, just as
happy (or unhappy). You can find more about it by watching
Dan Gilbert’s Ted Talk, The Surprising Science of Happiness.
Perhaps you believe that you’ll be happy once you’ve ‘made
it.’ But, as the above study on happiness shows, this is
simply not true. No matter what happens to you, you’ll
revert back to your predetermined level of happiness once
you’ve adapted to the new event. This is how your mind
works.
Does that mean you can’t be happier than you are right now?
No. What it means is that, in the long run, external events
have very little impact upon your level of happiness.
In fact, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How
of Happiness, fifty percent of our happiness is determined by
genetics, forty percent by internal factors, and only ten
percent by external factors. These external factors include
such things as whether we’re single or married, rich or poor,
and similar social influences.
This suggests, only ten percent of your happiness is linked to
external factors, which is probably way less than you
thought. The bottom line is this: Your attitude towards life
influences your happiness, not what happens to you.
By now, you understand how your survival mechanism
impacts negatively your emotions and prevent you from
experiencing more joy and happiness in your life. In the next
segment/section we’ll learn about the ego.
To read more visit my author page at:
amazon.com/author/thibautmeurisse
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHORS:
Crush Your Limits: Break Free from Limitations and Achieve Your True Potential
(Free Workbook Included)
Goal Setting: The Ultimate Guide to Achieving Life-Changing Goals (Free
Workbook Included)
Habits That Stick: The Ultimate Guide to Building Habits That Stick Once and For
All (Free Workbook Included)
Master Your Destiny: A Practical Guide to Rewrite Your Story and Become the
Person You Want to Be
Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better
Manage Your Feelings (Free Workbook Included)
Master Your Focus: A Practical Guide to Stop Chasing the Next Thing and Focus
on What Matters Until It's Done
Master Your Motivation: A Practical Guide to Unstick Yourself, Build Momentum
and Sustain Long-Term Motivation
Productivity Beast: An Unconventional Guide to Getting Things Done (Free
Workbook Included)
The Greatness Manifesto: Overcome Your Fear and Go After What You Really
Want
The One Goal: Master the Art of Goal Setting, Win Your Inner Battles, and
Achieve Exceptional Results (Free Workbook Included)
The Passion Manifesto: Escape the Rat Race, Uncover Your Passion and Design a
Career and Life You Love (Free Workbook Included)
The Thriving Introvert: Embrace the Gift of Introversion and Live the Life You
Were Meant to Live (Free Workbook Included)
The Ultimate Goal Setting Planner: Become an Unstoppable Goal Achiever in 90
Days or Less
Upgrade Yourself: Simple Strategies to Transform Your Mindset, Improve Your
Habits and Change Your Life
Wake Up Call: How To Take Control Of Your Morning And Transform Your Life
(Free Workbook Included)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thibaut
Meurisse
is
a
whatispersonaldevelopment.org.
author,
coach,
and
founder
of
He has been featured on major personal development websites such as Lifehack,
TinyBuddha, MotivationGrid, PickTheBrain, DumbLittleMan or FinerMinds.
Obsessed with self-improvement and fascinated by the power of the brain, his
personal mission is to help people realize their full potential and reach higher
levels of fulfillment and consciousness.
You can connect with him on his Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/whatispersonaldevelopment.org
Learn more about Thibaut at
amazon.com/author/thibautmeurisse